
RESENTATiVE 



rM,-i,»i;;«;^rr3.»>i.' :-i"<*'CT»y 




Book._/9_-ir 



COFffilGHT DSPOSm 




THE MINUTEMAN 

From the statue by Daniel C. French at Concord 



MntilVa EngliHlj ^exts 



RETRESENTATIVE 
AMERICAN POETRY 



EDITED BY E. B. RICHARDS, HEAD OF THE 
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, CENTRAL HIGH 

SCHOOL, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK :::::: 




CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



6'5*'' 






This series of books includes in complete editions those mas- 
terpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use 
of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes are 
chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the 
texts issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity 
with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound 
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, the editor has provided a 
critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life 
of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical 
opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of 
English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author. 
Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for 
special attention are supplied, but irrelevant annotation and 
explanations of the obvious are rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



Copyright, 1919 

BY 

CHARLE3 E. IVIERRILL CO. 



[2] 

CI.A571135 



PREFACE 



The poems in this book are arranged according to the date 
of the birth of the author. The bibhography is arranged alpha- 
betically. The notes are purposely few because the poems are 
intended to be read for pleasure, not to be studied. 

Grateful acknowledgment for permission to use copyrighted 
poems is hereby made to individual writers, publishers, and 
literary executors. 

Messrs. D. Appleton and Company: Bryant's ^'Thanatop- 
sis." 

Mr. Dana Burnet and llie Evening Sun: Burnet's ^'The Battle 
of Liege.'' 

Dr. John Finley and The Red Cross Magazine: Finley's ^'The 
Red Cross Spirit Speaks.'' 

Mr. Robert C. HoUiday, Literary Executor of Joyce Kilmer, 
and George H. Doran Company: poems by Joyce Kilmer. 

Houghton Mifflin Company, by special arrangement and per- 
mission: poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Watson 
Gilder, Francis Bret Harte, John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell 
Lowell, Edward Rowland Sill, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Edmund 
Clarence Stedman, Bayard Taylor, John Townsend Trowbridge, 
and John Greenleaf Whittier. 

Mrs. Louisa E. Ingalls: ^^Opportunity'' by John James In- 
galls. 

Mr. Vachel Lindsay and The Macmillan Company: Lindsay's 
^'Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," 

3 



4 PREFACE 

Mr. Edwin Markham: ''The Day and the Work," ''The 
Man with the Hoe/' and "Lincoln, The Man of the People," 
these poems appearing for the first time in revised form in this 
volume. 

Josephine Preston Peabody: (Mrs. S. L. Marks) and Houghton 
Mifflin Company: Peabody' s "The Singing Man." 

Mr. Horace Traubel, Literary Executor of Walt Whitman: 
"Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night." 

Dr. Henry Van Dyke and The Art World j where it originally 
appeared: Van Dyke's "The Name of France." 



INTRODUCTION 



This small collection of American poems is designed for use 
in the first year of the high school. It is issued with the hope that 
it may help to establish a love for poetry, especially American 
poetry, in the hearts of some boys and girls who chance to read its 
pages. 

The poems in this vohime are not intended to be studied; they 
are meant to be read for pleasure and for profit, just as any 
pieces of good literature should be read. The pleasure should 
come chiefly through the contact of the youthful mind with the 
serious, the humorous, the inspiring, the patriotic, as expressed in 
verse of various types. The profit should come through the 
thought contained in the poems themselves or through the knowl- 
edge that these poems were written by people whose writings it is 
worth while to know. 

No apology is made for including so few of the names ^' great 
in story. ^' This is not intended to be a collection of classic poetry 
if by that is implied poetry written by the few whom time has 
made imperishable. But it is human if it is not classical, and it is 
intended to appeal to boys and girls for whom the human side of 
life has charm if presented in the right spirit, whether in verse or 
in prose. No apology is made, likewise, for the number of selec- 
tions with a patriotic setting that are included in this little book. 
We shall need more than ever in the years succeeding to dwell on 
things patriotic. The task of the teacher of English is to help 
in the Americanization of all the polyglot peoples that come to 
our land. No better way is possible than to introduce their 

5 



6 ^ INTRODUCTION 

children to literature, American literature, strictly American in 
its theme. And not only these children, but the children of 
American parentage, so-called natives, need to become acquainted 
with things literary, having a distinctly national flavor. 

No poem with a history should be read unless that history is 
first made clear to the pupil. In like manner no poem should ever 
be read unless we know something about the person who wrote it. 
To that end a brief introduction prefaces each poem where the 
facts warrant it, and a short sketch of the author and his wTitings 
is included in the appendix. Neither is intended to be exhaustive 
even for first-year pupils, merely suggestive. It is important to 
get the spirit of the poems clearly in one's mind as well as the 
theme underl^dng. The spirit, the theme, the author — these 
should be the aim in reading each poem. 

^'Of the making of many books there is no end.'' Of the mak- 
ing of collections of American poems there will never be an end. 
This collection is only one of many, equally good in various 
respects. Its value will lie in its right use. With that last 
word it is sent forth. 

E. B. R. 



CONTENTS 



Francis Scott Key, 1780-1843 page 

The Star-Spangled Banner 11 

John Pierpont, 1785-1866 

Warren's Address to the American Soldiers. ... 13 

William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878 

Thanatopsis 15 

Joseph Rodman Drake, 1795-1820 

The American Flag 18 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882 

Concord Hymn 21 

Each and All 22 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882 

The Birds of Killingworth 24 

The Ladder of St. Augustine 35 

My Lost Youth 37 

The Secret of the Sea 41 

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892 

The Angels of Buena Vista 43 

Barclay of Ury 49 

Centennial Hymn 55 

The Vow of Washington 57 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 18Q9-1894 

The Chambered Nautilus 60 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Height of the Ridiculous 62 

The Last Leaf 64 

Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 

Our Country 66 

James Russell Lowell, 1819-1892 

A Vision 68, 

The Voyage to Vinland 71 

Walt Whitman, 1819-1892 

Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night ... 74 

Theodore O'Hara, 1820-1867 

The Bivouac of the Dead 77 

Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878 

The Song of the Camp 81 

John Townsend Trowbridge, 1827-1916 

Darius Green and His Flying Machine 83 

John James Ingalls, 1833-1900 

Opportunity 93 

Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833-1908 

The Hand of Lincoln 94 

Pan in Wall Street 96 

Harriet Prescott Spofford, 1835- 

How We Became a Nation . 100 

John Hay, 1838-1905 

Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle 103 

Liberty 106 

Francis Bret Harte, 1839-1902 

Plain Language from Truthful James 107 



CONTENTS 9 

Edward Rowland Sill, 1841-1887 page 

Force 110 

Life 112 

Richard Watson Gilder, 1844-1909 

When with Their Country's Anger 112 

Edwin Markham, 1852- 

The Day and the Work 113 

Lincoln, the Man of the People 115 

The Man with the Hoe 117 

Henry Van Dyke, 1852- 

The Name of France 119 

John Finley, 1863- 

The Red Cross Spirit Speaks 121 

Josephine Preston Peabody, 1872- 

The Singing Man 123 

Guy'Wetmore Carryl, 1873-1904 

When the Great Gray Ships Come In 133 

Vachel Lindsay, 1879- 

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 136 

Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918 

The Twelve: Forty-Five 138 

The White Ships and the Red 140 

Dana Burnet, 1888- 

The Battle of Liege 144 

List of American Poems for Supplementary Reading 149 

Biographical Notes 151 



AMERICAN POETRY 

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 
Francis Scott Key 

This poem, recognized by the United States Army as our 
national anthem in General Orders No. 201 of the War Depart- 
ment, published December 15, 1906, was written by Francis 
Scott Key on Wednesday morning, September 14, 1814. 

It was during the War of 1812, while the British forces were 
attacking the city of Baltimore, that the author was a temporary 
prisoner on the British flagship Surprise. Key had gone to the 
ship to secure the release of a friend. From one o'clock Wednes- 
day morning until seven o'clock, the bombardment of Fort 
McHenry had been so intense that the fort was enveloped in 
smoke. When the firing stopped. Key watched the outlines of the 
fort gradually re-appear until finally, with unbounded joy, he 
saw that the flag still floated in defiance of the shot and shell 
hurled against it. Inspired by that sight, he wrote the immortal 
words of ^'The Star-Spangled Banner." 

The original flag belongs to Mr. Eben Appleton of New York. 
It is twenty-eight by thirty feet in size and shows many battle 
scars. The song was first printed by The Aynerican of Baltimore 
as a pamphlet and distributed throughout the camps around 
the city, from w^hich it spread over the whole country. Army 
regulations prescribe a certain formahty to be observed when 
*'The Star-Spangled Banner" is played. Although the song has 

11 



12 AMERICAN POETRY 

never been formally adopted by congress as our national anthem, 
yet patriotism prescribes that a Uke formality should be observed 
by civilians when it is played. Within doors every one should 
rise and stand at attention, straight, with arms at the sides, facing 
the flag, or, if there is none displayed, facing the music. Outdoors 
it is customary for men to remove their hats and stand at atten- 
tion with the hat held in the right hand over the left breast. 
Out of respect for our Ally, England, the third verse as originally 
written is now omitted. 

O SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last 

gleaming — 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the 

perilous fight, 
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly 

streaming! 
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in 

air. 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still 

there; 
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? 

On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes. 

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep. 
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam. 

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 



WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE SOLDIERS 13 

'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave, 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their loved homes and foul war's desolation! 
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued 
land 
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a 
nation. 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto, — ^^In God is our trust": 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN 

SOLDIERS 

John Pierpont 

This poem was written 'in commemoration of the events taking 
place on the 17th of June, 1775. At noon of that day 3,000 
British regulars were ordered forward to storm the hill upon which 
Warren's soldiers were massed. The reception accorded the 
regulars made them flee in disorder. 

Stand! The ground's your own, my braves! 
Will* ye give it up to slaves? 
Will ye look for greener graves? 
Hope ye mercy still? 



AMERICAN POETRY 

What^s the mercy despots feel? 
Hear it in that battle-peal ! 
Read it on yon bristling steel! 
Ask it — ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire? 
Will ye to your homes retire? 
Look behind you! they're afire! 

And, before 3^ou, see 
Who have done it ! From the vale 
On they come ! — and will ye quail? 
Leaden rain and iron hail 

Let their welcome be ! 

In the God of battles trust ! 
Die we may, — and die w^e must; 
But, oh, where can dust to dust 

Be consigned so well, 
As where Heaven its dews shall shed 
On the martyred patriot's bed, 
And the rocks shall raise their head, 

Of his deeds to tell? 



THANATOPSIS 15 

THANATOPSIS 
William Cullen Bryant 

^'Thanatopsis" appeared in The North American Revien) in 
1817. It was composed when Bryant was seventeen years old, 
during some solitary rambles in the woods, probably in the sum- 
mer of 1811. The title is a combination of two Greek words 
which mean "view of death." It is one of the sublimest poems in 
the English language. 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

A various language; for his gayer hours 

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 

Into his darker musings, with a mild 

And healing sympathy, that steals away 

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall. 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart; — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice: — 

Yet a few days, and thee 



16 AMERICAN POETRY 

The all-beholding sun sliall see no more 

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, 

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix forever with the elements, 

To be a brother to the insensible rock 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The Oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings. 

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good. 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between; 

The venerable woods — ^rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green; and^ poured round all, 

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

Are but the solemn decorations all 



THANATOPSIS 17 

i)f the great toml:) of man. The golden sun, 
The i)lan(*ts, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful of the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there; 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glides away, the sons of men — 
The youth in lifers fresh spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid. 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
By those, who in their turn shrill follow them. 



18 AMERICAN POETRY 

So live, that when thy summons comes to jom 
The mnumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



THE AMERICAN FLAG 

» 

Joseph Rodman Drake 

This poem should be compared with ''The Star-Spangled 
Banner." The one is studied in its effect; the other is sponta- 
neous. This poem is a poet's expression of the meaning of our 
national banner. The official history of our flag began June 14, 
1777, the day now widely celebrated as Flag Day. It was not 
until April 14, 1818, however, that the flag was finally fixed by 
Act of Congress so that it consisted of thirteen horizontal stripes, 
alternate red and white, and a blue field containing one star for 
every state admitted to the Union. Our flag is the emblem of 
liberty, of hope, and of peace and good-will to men. 

When Freedom from her mountain height, 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night, 
And set the stars of glory there; 



THE AMERICAN FLAG 19 

She mingled wiili its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure, celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light; 
Then, from his mansion in the sun, 
She called her eagle bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand, . 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

Majestic monarch of the cloud! 
Who rear^st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, 
And see the lightning-lances driven 

When strive the warriors of the storm. 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven — 

Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given 

To guard the banner of the free. 
To hover in the sulphur smoke. 
To ward away the battle-stroke. 
And bid its blenclings shine afar. 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 

The harbingers of victory! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 
The sign of hope and triumph high, 
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on : 
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet. 



20 AMERICAN POETRY 

Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
Where thy sky-born glories burn, 
And, as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance; 
And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, 
And gory sabres rise and fall. 
Like shoots of flame on midnight^s pall; 

Then shall thy meteor-glances glow. 
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath 

Each gallant arm that strikes below 
That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail. 
And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each d^dng wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee. 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home. 
By angel hands to valor given; 

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
And all thy hues were born in heaven. 



CONCORD HYMN 21 

Forevpr float tliat staiiclard ?shepi ! 

WluMx^ bivalhes ilic foe l)ul falls before us, 
With Freedoiii^s soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us? 



CONCORD HYMN 
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Emerson's ''Concord Hymn" was written in 1836 and sung at 
the celebration held in honor of the completion of the battle 
monument on April 19 of that year. The lines refer to the fight 
which took place at Concord Bridge in 1775, between the British 
and the American Minutemen. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone; 
That memory may their deed redeem. 
When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 



22 AMERICAN POETRY 

Spirit, thai made those heroes dare ' 
To (lie, a,M(l leave tlieir ehildreii free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 

EACH AND ALL 

Ralph W. Emerson 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 

Of thee from the hill top looking down; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon. 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 

Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 

All are needed by each one; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven. 

Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 

I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 

He sings his song, but it cheers not no'vv, 

For I did not bring home the river and sky; 

He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 



EACH AND ALL 23 

The bubbles of the latest wave 

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 

Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasm^es home; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore 

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 

The lover watched his graceful maid, 

As mid the virgin train she strayed, 

Nor knew her beauty^s best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

Then I said, ^'I covet truth; 

Beauty is unripe childhood^s cheat; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth :^' 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club moss burs; 

I inhaled the violet^s breath; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs; 

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; 

Over me soared the eternal sky. 

Full of light and of deity; 



24 AMERICAN POETRY 

Again I saw, again I heard, 

The rolKng river, the morning bird; 

Beauty through my senses stole; 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

This poem of Longfellow's points a moral well worth the atten- 
tion of every boy and girl. It is appHcable in a Avider sense than 
the mere words indicate. The poem is founded ii})on the fact 
that such a slaughter as is related here took place yearly in the 
village of Killingworth, Connecticut. 

It was the season when through all the land 
The merle and mavis build, and building sing 

Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand. 

Whom Saxon Caedmon calls the Blithe-heart King; 

When on the boughs the purple buds expand. 
The banners of the vanguard of the Spring, 

And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap. 

And wave their fluttering signals from the steep. 

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud. 

Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; 

The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud 
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 25 

And hungry crows assembled in a crowd 

Clamored their piteous prayer incessanth^, 
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said — 
'^Give us, Lord, this day, our daily bread !^^ 

Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed. 

Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet 

Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed 

The village with the cheers of all their fleet; . 

Or quarrelling together, laughed and railed 
Like foreign sailors, landed in the street 

Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise 

Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys. 

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, 
In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; 

And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth. 
Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow. 

That mingled with the universal mirth, 
Cassandra-like,^ prognosticating woe; 

They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful 
words 

To swift destruction the whole race of birds. 

And a town-meeting was convened straightway 

To set a price upon the guilty heads 
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, 

Levied blackmail upon the garden beds 



26 AMERICAN POETRY 

And cornfields, and beheld without dismay 

The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds, 
The skeleton that waited at their feast, 
Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. 

Then from his house, a temple painted white. 
With fluted columns, and a roof of red, 

The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight! 
Slowly descending, with majestic tread. 

Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right, 
Down the long street he walked, as one who said, 

^'A town that boasts inhabitants like me 

Can have no lack of good society!'^ 

The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere. 
The instinct of whose nature was to kill; 

The wrath of God he preached from year to year. 
And read, with fervor, Edwards on the Will; ^ 

His favorite pastime was to slay the deer 
In Summer on some Adirondack hill; 

E^en now, while walking down the rural lane, 

He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane. 

From the Academy, whose belfry crowned 
The Hill of Science with its vane of brass, 

Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round. 

Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 27 

And all absorbed in reveries profound 

Of fair Abnii'a in (lie upper elass, 
Who was, as in a sonnet lie had said, 
As pure as water and as good as bread. 

And next the Deacon issued from his door, 
In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow; 

A suit of sable bombazine he wore; 

His form was ponderous, and his step was slow; 

There never was so wise a man before; 

He seem.ed the incarnate ^^Well, I told you so!'^ 

And to perpetuate his great renown 

There was a street named after him in town. 

These came together in the new town-hall, 
With sundry farmers from the region round, 

The Squire presided, dignified and tall. 

His air impressive and his reasoning sound; 

111 fared it with the birds, both great and small ; 
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found, 

But enemies enough, who every one 

Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun. 

When they had ended, from his place apart, 
Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrongs 

And, trembling like a steed before the start. 

Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng; 



28 AMERICAN POETRY 

Then Ihoviglil of fair Almira, and took heaii 

IV) speak out what, was in him, {•l(\ar and sijong, 
Alike regardless of their smile or frown, 
And quite determined not to be laughed down. 

^^ Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, 

From his Republic banished without pit}^ 

The Poets; in this Httle town of yours. 

You put to death, by means of a Committee, 

The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, 
The street-musicians of the heavenly city. 

The birds, who make sweet music for us all 

In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. 

^^The thrush that carols at the dawn of day 
From the green steeples of the piny wood; 

The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, 
Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; 

The bluebird balanced on some topmost spra}^. 
Flooding with melody the neighborhood; 

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng 

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song, — 

'^ You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, 

Or rye, or barley, or some other grain. 

Scratched up at random by industrious feet, 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 29 

Searching for worm or weevil after rain, 

Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet 
As ai'c the songs these uninvited guests 
Sing at their feasts with comfortable breasts. 

^^Do you ne^er think what wondrous beings these? 

Do you ne^er think who made them, and who taught 
The dialect they speak where melodies 

Alone are the interpreters of thought? 
Whose household words are songs in many keys, 

Sweeter than instrument of man e^er caught! 
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 
Are halfway houses on the road to heaven ! 

'^ Think, every morning w^hen the sun peeps through 
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, 

How jubilant the happy birds renew 
Their old, melodious madrigals of love ! 

And when you think of this, remember, too, 
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above 

The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 

Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 

^^ Think of your woods and orchards without birds! 

Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams. 
As in an idiot^s brain remembered words 

Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams! 



30 AMERICAN POETRY 

Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 

Make up for the lost music, when your teams 
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 
The feathered gleaners follow to your door? 

^^What! would you rather see the incessant stir 
Of insects in the windrows of the ha^^, 

And hear the locust and the grasshopper 
Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? 

Is this more pleasant to you than the whir 
Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay, 

Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take 

Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake? 

^^ You call them thieves and pillagers; but know, 
They are the winged wardens of your farms, 

Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; 

Even the blackest of them all, the crow 
Renders good service as your man-at-arms. 

Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail. 

And crying havoc on the slug and snail. 

'^How can I teach 3^our children gentleness, 
And mercy to the weak, and reverence 

For Life, which, in its weakness or excess. 
Is still a gleam of God^s omnipotence, 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 31 

Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less 
The selfsame light, although averted hence. 
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, 
You contradict the very things I teach?'' 

With this he closed; and through the audience went 
A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves; 

The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent 
Their yellow heads together like their sheaves; 

Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment 

Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. 

The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows, 

A bounty offered for the heads of crows. 

There was another audience out of reach. 
Who had no voice nor vote in making laws, 

But in the papers read his little speech, 

And crowned his modest temples with applause; 

They made him conscious, each one more than each, 
He still was victor, vanquished in their cause. 

Sweetest of all, the applause he won from thee, 

fair Almira at the Academy. 

And so the dreadful massacre began; 

O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests. 
The ceaseless fusilade of terror ran. 

Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts. 



32 AMERICAN POETRY 

Or wounded crept away from .^ighi of Tiian, 

While the 3^oung died of famine in their net^ts; 
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, 
The very St. Bartholomew ^ of Birds! 

The Summer came, and all the birds were dead; 

The days were like hot coals; the very ground 
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed 

Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 

Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 
No foe to check their march, till they had made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade. 

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, 

Because like Herod, it had ruthlessly 
Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down 

The canker-worms upon the passers-by. 
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, 

Who shook them off with just a little cry; 
They were the terror of each favorite walk. 
The endless theme of all the village talk. 

The farmers grew impatient, but a few 

Confessed their error, and w^ould not complain. 

For, after all, the best thing one can do. 
When it is raining, is to let it rain. 



THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 33 

Then tliey r(3pealed the law, although they knew 

It would not call the dead to life again; 
As school-boys, finding their mistake too late, 
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. 

That year in Killingworth the Autumn came 
Without the light of his majestic look, 

The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, 
The illumined pages of his Doomsday book. 

A few last leaves blushed crimson with their shame 
And drowned themselves despairing in the brook 

While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, 

Lamenting the dead children of the air. 

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen, 
A sight that never yet by bard was sung. 

As great a wonder as it would have been 
If some dumb animal had found a tongue ! 

A wagon, overarched with evergreen, 

Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung. 

All full of singing birds, came down the street, 

Filling the air with music wild and sweet. 

From all the country round these birds were brought, 
By order of the town, with anxious quest, 

And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought 
In woods and fields the places they loved best, 



34 AMERICAN POETRY 

Singing loud canticles, which nian}^ thought 
Were satires to the authorities addressed, 
While others, listening in green lanes, averred 
Such lovely music never had been heard. 

But blither still and louder carolled they 
Upofi the morrow, for they seemed to know 

It was fair Almira's wedding-day 

And everywhere, around, above, below. 

When the Preceptor bore his bride away. 
Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow. 

And a new heaven bent over a new earth 

Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. 

^ In Greek mythology Cassandra was the daughter of Priam 
and Hecuba. She was endowed with the gift of prophecy by 
Apollo who ordained that no one should believe her because she 
spurned his love. 

- The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, took place August 24^ 
1572, when 70,000 French Protestants were murdered at the 
secret instigation of Catherine de' Medici, mother of Charles IX. 



. THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE 35 

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE 
Henry W. Longfellow 

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was born in 354 in Numidia 
and died in 430. He lived a life marked by vices and follies in his 
youth and early manhood. In a Latin sermon in later life he 
stated that we make of our vices a ladder if we trample them 
under foot. Longfellow took the thought and made a helpful 
poem based upon it. 

Saint Augustine! Well hast thou said, 
That of our vices we can frame 

A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 

All common things, each day^s events 
That with the hour begin and end; 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 
Are rounds by which we may ascend. 

The low desire, the base design, 
That makes another^s virtues less; 

The revel of the giddy wine, 
And all occasions of excess; 

The longing for ignoble things, 

The strife for triumph more than truth, 

The hardening of the heart that brings 
Irreverence for the dreams of youth; 



36 AMERICAN POETRY 

All thoughts of ill — all evil deeds 

That have their root in thoughts of ill; 

Whatever hinders or impedes 
The action of the nobler will; — 

All these must first be trampled down 
Beneath our feet, if we would gain 

In the bright field of fair renown 
The right of eminent domain! 

We have not wings, we cannot soar, 
But we have feet to scale and climb 

By slow degrees — ^by more and more — 
The cloudy summits of our time. 

The mighty pyramids of stone 

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 

When nearer seen and better known. 
Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 

The distant mountains that uprear 
Their frowning foreheads to the skies. 

Are crossed by pathways that appear 
As we to higher levels rise. 

The heights by great men reached and kept, 
Were not attained by sudden flight; 

But they, while their companions slept. 
Were toiling upward in the night. 



MY LOST YOUTH 37 

Standing on \^'lLat too long we bore 

With shoukhu's IxMit and downcast eyes, 

We may discern, unseen before, 
A path to higher destinies. 

Nor deem the irrevocable past 

As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 
If, rising on its wrecks, at last 

To something nobler we attain. 



MY LOST YOUTH 
Henry W. Longfellow 

Longfellow was born and brought up in sight of the sea from 
which he drew so much inspiration. We get a hint of his love 
for it in ''The Secret of the Sea," and here also, we find this 
enthusiasm sincerely expressed. 

Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town. 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still : 
'^A boy^s will is the wind^s will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'^ 



38 AMERICAy: POETRY 

I can sec the shadow}' lines of its trees. 

And catch, in sudden ^Ifvanis, 
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Hesperides ^ 
Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
It murmurs and whispers still : 
^^A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts/^ 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea-tides tossing free; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips. 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and sa3dng still: 
'^A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore. 

And the fort upon the hill; 
The sunrise gun, w^ith its hollow roar, 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er. 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still : 
^^A boy's will is the wind's will 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



MY LOST YOUTH 39 

I remember the sea-fight far away, 

How it thmidered o^er the tide! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, overlooking the tranquil bay 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
^^A boy's will is the wind's will 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts/' 

I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song. 
It flutters and murmurs still : 
'^A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the school-boy's brain; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still: 
'^ A l)oy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



40 AMERICAN POETRY 

There are things of which I may not speak; 

There are dreams that cannot die; 
There are thoughts that make the strong heart 

weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill : 
'^A boy^s will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town; 
But the native air is pure and sweet, 
And the trees that overshadow each well-known 
street. 
As they balance up and down. 
Are singing the beautiful song. 
Are sighing and whispering still: 
'^A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 

And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there. 
And among the dreams of the da3^s that were, 

I find my lost youth again. 



THE SECRET OF THE SEA 41 

And the strange and beautiful song, 
The groves are repeating it still ; 
^'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

1 Hesperides. This term is used in Greek mythology to refer to 
certain . nymphs whose special care was the protection of the 
garden of Hera, located on an island in the western sea. It was 
the eleventh labor of Hercules to secure the golden apples in 
this garden and take them to Eurystheus. 



THE SECRET OF THE SEA 
Henry W. Longfellow 

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me 

As I gaze upon the sea! 
All the old romantic legends. 

All my dreams, come back to me. 

« 
Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, 

Such as gleam in ancient lore; 

And the singing of the sailors. 

And the answer from the shore ! 

Most of all, the Spanish ballad 
Haunts me oft, and tarries long, 

Of the noble Count Arnaldos 
And the sailor's mystic eong. 



42 AMERICAN POETRY 

Like -the long waves on a sea-beach^ 
Where the sand as silver shines, 

With a soft, monotonous cadence, 
Flow its unrhymed lyric lines: — 

Telling how the Count Arnaldos, 

With his hawk upon his hand, 
Saw a fair and stately galley, 

Steering onward to the land : — 

How he heard the ancient helmsman 

Chant a song so wild and clear, 
That the sailing sea-bird slowly 

Poised upon the mast to hear, 

Till his soul was full of longing, 

And he cried, with impulse strong, — 

^^ Helmsman! for the love of heaven, 
Teach me, too, that wondrous song!^^ 

'^Wouldst thou,'' — so the helmsman answered, 

^^ Learn the secret of the sea? 
Only those who brave its dangers 

Comprehend its mystery!'' 

In each sail that skims the horizon, 
In each landward-blowing breeze, 

I behold that stately galley, 
Hear those mournful melodies; 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 43 

Till my soul is full of longing 

For the secn^t of th(^ sea, 
And the heart of the great ocean 

Sends a thrilling pulse through me. 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

During the Battle of Buena Vista, February 22-23, 1847, it 
is said that the Mexican women ministered to the soldiers of both 
armies impartially. This was before the days of the Red Cross 
Society which was founded as a result of the Geneva convention 
in 1864. The American Red Cross was not established, however, 
until 1881. 

Speak and tell us, our Xiniena, looking northward far 

away, 
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, 
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they 

near? 
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, w^hither rolls the storm 

we hear. 

^^Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle 

rolls; 
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on 

their souls!" 



44 AMERICAN POETRY 

^\ lin i^ Josing? vvlao i^^ vviiming?-— '*C)ver hill and over 

phiiu, 

I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the 

mountain rain.'' 

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look 
once more. 

'^ Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as be- 
fore, 

Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, 
foot and horse. 

Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its 
mountain course." 

Look forth once more, Ximena! ^'Ah! the smoke has 

rolled away; 
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks 

of gray. 
Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of 

Minon wheels; 
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon 

at their heels. 

'^Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now ad- 
vance! 

Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's 
charging lance! 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 45 

Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot 

together fall; 
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs 

the Northern ball.'' 

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and 

frightful on. 
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who 

has won? 
^^Alas! alas! I know not: friend and foe together 

fall, 
O'er the dying rush the living: pra}^, my sisters, for tlieni 

all! 

^'Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting: Blessed Mother save 
my brain ! 

I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of 
slain. 

Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, 
and strive to rise; 

Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die be- 
fore our eyes! 

'^0 my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head 

on my knee : 
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou 

hear me? canst thou see? 



46 AMERICAN POETRY 

O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look 

once more 
On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! mercy! all is 

o'er!^' 

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down 

to rest; 
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his 

breast; 
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses 

said : 
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask th}^ aid. 

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a 

soldier lay, 
Torn with shot and pierced ^yith lances, bleeding slow 

his life away; 
But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Ximena knelt, 
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt. 

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her 

head ; 
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her 

dead; 
But she heard the ^^outh^s slow moaning, and his 

struggling breath of pain. 
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips 

again. 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 47 

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and 
faintly smiled: 

Was that pitying face his mother^s? did she watch be- 
side her child? 

All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart 
supplied; 

With her kiss upon his forehead, ^^ Mother! '^ murmured 
he, and died! 

^'A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee 

forth, 
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, 

in the North!'' 
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with 

her dead. 
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds 

that bled. 

Look forth once more, Ximena! ^^Like a cloud before 

the wind 
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and 

death behind; 
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the 

wounded strive; 
Hide your faces, holy angels! oh thou Christ of God 

forgive!" 



48 AMERICAN POETRY 

Siiik, Night, atriong thy mountains! let the cool, 

gray shadows fall; 
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over 

all! 
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart 

the battle rolled. 
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips 

grew cold. 

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pur- 
sued, 

Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and 
faint and lacking food, 

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care 
they hung, 

And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and 
Northern tongue. 

Not wholly lost, Father! is this evil world of ours; 
Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the 

Eden flowers; 
From its smoking hell of battle. Love and Pity send 

their prayer, 
And still the white-winged angels hover dimly in the 

air! 



' BARCLAY OF URY ' 49 

BARCLAY OF URY . 

John G. Whittier 

The hero of this poem is David Barclay who was born in 1610. 
He served in the Thirty Years' War under Gustavus Adolphus 
of Sweden. After the Restoration he was arrested, and while 
confined in Edinburgh Castle, he became a Quaker. The in- 
cident referred to by Whittier is founded upon Barclay's con- 
version to Quakerism. 

Up the streets of Aberdeen/ 
By the kirk and college green, 

Rode the Laird of Ury; 
Close behind him, close beside, 
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, 

Pressed the mol) in fury. 

Flouted him the drunken churl. 
Jeered at him the serving-girl, 

Prompt to please her master; 
And the begging carlin, late 
Fed and clothed at Ury\s gate, 

Cursed him as he passed her. 

Yet, with calm and stately mien, 
Up the streets of Aberdeen 
Came he slowly riding; 



50 AMERICAN POETRY 

And, to all he saAVjind heard, 
Answering not with bitter word, 
Turning not for chiding. 

Came a troop with broadswords swinging, 
Bits and bridles sharply ringing. 

Loose and free and fro ward; 
Quoth the foremost, ^^Ride him down! 
Push him! prick him! through the town 

Drive the Quaker coward !^^ 

But from out the thickening crowd 
Cried a sudden voice and loud : 

'^Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!'' 
And the old man at his side 
Saw a comrade, battle tried. 

Scarred and sun-burned darkly; 

Who with ready weapon bare, 
Fronting to the troopers there. 

Cried aloud: '^God save us. 
Call ye coward him who stood 
Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood. 

With the brave Gustavus?'' ^ 

^'Nay, I do not need thy sword, 
Comrade mine,'' said Ury's Lord; 
'^Put it up, I pray thee: 



BARCLAY OF URY 51 



Passive to his holy will, 
Trust I in my Master still, 
Even though he slay me. 



It 



Pledges of thy love and faith, 
Proved on many a field of death, 

Not by me are needed/^ 
Marvelled much that henchman bold. 
That his laird, so stout of old. 

Now so meekly pleaded. 

"Woe's the dayT' he sadly said, 
With a slowly shaking head. 

And a look of pity; 
'^Ury's honest lord reviled. 
Mock of knave and sport of child, 

In his own good city! 

"Speak the word, and master mine, 
As we charged on Tilly's line. 

And his Walloon ^ lancers, 
Smiting through their midst we'll teach 
Civil look and decent speech 

To these boyish prancers!' 

"Marvel not, mine ancient friend. 
Like beginning, like the end:" 
Quoth the Laird of Ury, 



52 AMERICAN POETRY 

'^Is the sinful servant more 
Than his gracious Lord who bore 
Bonds and stripes in Jewry? 

"Give me joy that in His name 
I can bear, with patient frame, . 

All these vain ones offer; 
While for them He suffereth long, 
Shall I answer wrong with wrong, 

Scoffing with the scoffer? 

"Happier I, with loss of all, 
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, 

With few friends to greet me. 
Than when reeve and squire were seen, 
Riding out from Aberdeen, 

With bared heads to greet me. 

"When each goodwife, o'er and o'er. 
Blessed me as I passed her door; 

And the snooded daughter, 
Through her casement glancnig down. 
Smiled on him who bore renown 

From red fields of slaughter. 

"Hard to feel the stranger's scoff. 
Hard the old friend's falling off. 
Hard to learn forgiving; 



BARCLAY OF URY 53 

But the liord His own rewartk, 
And His love wiili theirs accords, 
Warm and fresh and living. 

'^ Through this dark and stormy night 
Faith beholds a feeble light 

Up the blackness streaking; 
Knowing God^s own time is best, 
In a patient hope I rest 

For the full day-breaking!^' 

So the Laird of Ury said, 
Turning slow his horse's head 

Toward the Tolbooth prison. 
Where, through iron gates he heard 
Poor disciples of the Word 

Preach of Christ arisen! 

Not in vain. Confessor old, 
Unto us the tale is told 

Of thy days of trial; 
Every age on him who strays 
From its broad and beaten ways 

Pours its sevenfold vial. 

Happy he whose inward ear 
Angel comfortings can hear, 
O'er the rabble's laughter; 



54 AMERICAN POETRY 

And, wbile Hatred's fagots burn, 
Glimpses through the smoke discern 
Of the good hereafter. 

Knowing this, that never yet* 
Share of Truth was vainly set 

In the world ^s wide fallow; 
After hands shall sow the seed, 
After hands from hill and mead 

Reap the harvest yellow. 

Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, 
Must the moral pioneer 

From the Future borrow; 
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, 
And, on midnight^s sky of rain. 

Paint the golden morrow ! 

^ Aberdeen is the fourth largest city of Scotland. It is a beauti- 
ful city containing many fine churches and college buildings.' 

2 Gustavus II was king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. He was 
prominent in the Thirty Years' War and was killed in the Battle 
of Liitzen. 

^ Walloons were descendants of the ancient Belgians who oc- 
cupied southern Belgium and spoke a French dialect. They 
were fine warriors. 



CENTENNIAL HYMN 55 

CENTENNIAL HYMN 
John G. Whittier 

1876 marked the 100th anniversary of the independence of this 
country. Philadelphia was chosen as the place for the celebration 
which took the form of a great exposition. On the opening day 
this Centennial Hymn was sung by a chorus of a thousand voices. 

Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
We meet to-day, united, free, 
And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done, 
And trust Thee for the opening one. 

Here, where of old, by Thy design. 
The fathers spake that word of Thine 
Whose echo is the glad refrain 
Of rended bolt and falling chain. 
To grace our festal time, from all 
The zones of earth our guests we call. 

Be with us while the New World greets 
The Old World thronging all its streets. 
Unveiling all the triumphs won 
By art or toil beneath the sun; 
And unto common good ordain 
This rivalship of hand and brain. 



56 AMERICAN POETRY 

Thou, who hast here in concord furled 
The war-flags of a gathered world, 
Beneath our Western skies fulfil 
The Orient's mission of good-will, 
And freighted with love's Golden Fleece,^ 
Send back its Argonauts of peace. 

For art and labor met in truce. 
For beauty made the bride of use. 
We thank Thee; but, withal, w^e crave 
The austere virtues strong to save, 
The honor proof to place or gold, 
The manhood never bought or sold. 

Oh make Thou us, through centuries long. 
In peace secure, in justice strong; 
Around our gift of freedom draw 
The safeguards of our righteous law : 
And cast in some diviner mould. 
Let the new cycle shame the old! 

^ Sec the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece in Gaylcy's 
Classic Myths. 



THE VOW OF WASHINGTON 57 

THE VOW OF WASHINGTON 
John G. Whittier 

This poem is based upon the historical fact that Washington 
left Mount Vernon April 16 and started for New York City, 
Avhere, April 30, 1789, he took the oath of office as President of 
the United States. 

The sword was sheathed: in ApriFs sun 
Lay green the fields by Fl-eedom won; 
And severed sections, weary of debates, 
Joined hands at last and were United States. 

O City sitting by the Sea! 

How proud the day that dawned on thee. 
When the new era, long desired, began. 
And, in its need, the hour had found the man! 

One thought the cannon salvos spoke, 
The resonant bell-tower^s vibrant stroke. 
The voiceful streets, the plaudit-echoing halls, 
And prayer and hymn borne heavenward from St. 
PauFs! 

How felt the land in every part 

The strong throb of a nation^s heart. 
As its great leader gave, with reverent awe, 
His pledge to Union, Liberty, and Law!^- 



58 AMERICAN POETRY 

That pledge the heavens above him heard, 
That vow the sleep of centuries stirred; 
In world-wide wonder listening peoples bent 
Their gaze on Freedom^s great experiment. 

Could it succeed? Of honor sold 
And hopes deceived all history told. 
Above the wrecks that strewed the mournful past, 
Was the long dream of ages true at last? 

Thank God! the people's choice was just, 

The one man equal to his trust, 
Wise beyond lore, and without weakness good, 
Calm in the strength of flawless rectitude! 

His rule of justice, order, peace, 
Made possible the world's release; 
Taught prince and serf that power is but a trust, 
And rule alone, which serves the ruled, is just; 

That Freedom generous is, but strong 
In hate of fraud and selfish wrong. 
Pretence that turns her holy truth to lies, 
And lawless license masking in her guise. 

Land of his love ! with one glad voice 

Let thy great sisterhood rejoice; 
A century's suns o'er thee have risen and set 
And, God be praised, we are one nation yet. 



THE VOW OF WASHINGTON 59 

And still we trust the years to be 

Shall prove his hope was destin^^ 
Leaving our flag, with all its added stars, 
Unrent by faction and unstained by wars. 

Lo ! Where with patient toil he nursed 
And trained the new-set plant at first, 
The widening branches of a stately tree 
Stretch from the sunrise to the sunset sea. 

And in its broad and sheltering shade, 

Sitting with none to make afraid, 
Were we now silent, through each mighty limb. 
The winds of heaven would sing the praise of him. 

Our first and best ! — his ashes lie 

Beneath his own Virginian sky. 
Forgive, forget, O true and just and brave, 
The storm that swept above thy sacred grave! 

For, ever in the awful strife 
And dark hours of the nation^s life. 
Through the fierce tumult pierced his warning word, 
Their father's voice his erring children heard! 

The change for which he prayed and sought 

In that sharp agony was wrought; 
No partial interest draws its alien line 
Twixt North and South, the cypress and the pine! 



60 AMERICAN POET BY 

Ouxi people now, all doubt beyond, 
His name shall be our Union-bond; 
We lift our hands to Heaven, and here and now 
Take on our lips the old Centennial vow. 

For rule and trust must needs be ours; 

Chooser and chosen both are powers 
Equal in service as in rights; the claim 
Of duty rests on each and all the same. 

Then let the sovereign millions, where 

Our banner floats in sun and air, 
From the warm palm-lands to Alaskans cold, 
Repeat with us the pledge a century old ! 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 
Oliver Wendell Holmes 

The nautilus, an inhabitant of tropic seas, has a shell of many 
chambers, spiral in shape. The animal Hves in the outermost 
chambers, the others being empty. These chambers are con- 
nected by a tube, through which they may be filled with air or 
water, and thus enable the nautilus to rise or sink. The symbol- 
ism of this poem is beautiful, and it should be read thoughtfully. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 61 

111 gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare. 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew. 
He left the last yearns dwelling for the new. 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door. 
Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea. 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings. 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 



62 AMERICAN POETRY 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. 

Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 
Oliver W. Holmes 

This poem is a good example of the humor of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. As one of our American humorists, he takes a high 
place by reason of his geniality. 

I WROTE some Unes once on a time 

In wondrous merry mood, 
And thought, as usual, men would say 

They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 

I laughed as I would die; 
Albeit, in the general way, 

A sober man am I. 

I called my servant, and he came; 

How kind it was of him 
To mind a slender man Uke ixie, 

He of the mighty limb. 



THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 63 

''These to the printer," I exclaimed, 

And, in my hmnorous way, 
I added (as a trifling jest,) 

'^There^l be the devil to pay/' 

He took the paper, and I watched, 

And saw him peep within; 
At the first line he read, his face 

Was all upon the grin. 

He read the next; the grin grew broad, 

And shot from ear to ear; 
He read the third; a chuckling noise 

I now began to hear. 

The fourth; he broke into a roar; 

The fifth; his waistband split; 
The sixth; he burst five buttons off^ 

And tumbled in a fit. 



Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye 
I watched that wretched man, 

And since, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can. 



64 AMERICAN POETRY 

THE LAST LEAF 
Oliver W. Holmes 

The original of this poem was a Revolutionary soldier, Major 
Thomas Melville, who had a share in the Boston ^'tea-party." 
He was often seen on the streets in Holmes's day. 

I SAW him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound. 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime. 
Ere the pruning knife of Time 

Cut him down 
Not a better man ^as found 
By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head. 
That it seems as if he said, 

'^ They are gone.'' 



THE LAST LEAF 65 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the Hps that he has prest 

In then- bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose. 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow; 

But now his nose is thin. 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff. 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer! 



66 AMERICAN POETRY 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



OUR COUNTRY 
Julia Ward Howe 

On primal rocks she wrote her name; 

Her towers were reared on holy graves; 
The golden seed that bore her came 

Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves. 

The forest bowed his solemn crest, 
And open flung his sylvan doors; 

Meek Rivers led the appointed guest 
To clasp the wide-embracing shores; 

Till, fold by fold, the broidered land 
To swell her virgin vestments grew. 

While sages, strong in heart and hand, 
Her virtue's fiery girdle drew. 



OUR COUNTRY 67 

Exile of the wrath of kings! 

O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty! 
The refuge of divinest things, 

Their record must abide in thee! 

First in the glories of thy front 

Let the crown-jewel, Truth, be found; 

Thy right hand fling, with generous wont, 
Love's happiest chain to farthest bound ! 

Let Justice, with the faultless scales. 
Hold fast the worship of thy sons; 

Thy Commerce spread her shining sails 
Whez'e no dark tide of rapine runs! 

So link thy ways to those of God, 

So follow firm the heavenly laws. 
That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed, 

And storm-sped angels hail thy cause! 

Lord, the measure of our prayers 
Hope of the world in grief and wrong. 

Be thine the tribute of the years, 
The gift of Faith, the crown of Song! 



68 AMERICAN POETRY 

A VISION 
James Russell Lowell 

This selection is taken from the Biglow Papers, from Mr. 
Hosea Biglow' s reply to the editor of The Atlantic Monthly. It 
was written near the end of the Civil War, and is phrased in 
the native dialect of a Yankee of the time, who was capable, as 
Lowell said, ^'of district-school English" when not deeply stirred. 

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane 

The charm makes blazin^ logs so pleasant, 
But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', 

With Grant or Sherman oilers present; 
The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' 
Like a shot hawk, but alPs ez stale 

To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. 

Under the yaller pines I house, 

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 
An' hear among their furry boughs 

The baskin' west-wind purr contented. 
While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 

Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', 
The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, 

Further an' further South retreatin'. 

Or up the slippery knob I strain 
An' see a hundred hill^ like islan's 



A VISION 69 

Lift their blue woods in broken chain 

Out o' the sea o^ snowy silence; 
The farm-smokes, sweetes^ sight on airth, 

Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' 
Seem kin' o' sad an' roun' the hearth 

Of empty places set me thinkin'. 

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, 
. An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; 
Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, 

An' into psalms or satires ran it; 
But he, nor all the rest thet once 

Started my blood to country-dances. 
Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce 

Thet hain't no sue for dreams an' fancies. 

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 

I hear the drummers makin' riot. 
An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 

Thet follered once an' now are quiet, — 
White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, 
Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't 

No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. 

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? 

Didn't I love to see 'em growin'. 
Three likely lads ez wal could be, 

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? 



70 AMERICAN POETRY 

I set an' look into the blaze 

Whose natur^, jest like theirn, keeps clinibin', 
Ez long'z it lives, in shinin^ ways, 

An' half despise myself for rhymin'. 

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth 
On War's red techstone rang true metal, 

Who ventered life an' love an' youth 

• For the gret prize o' death in battle? 

To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 

Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 
Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? 

'T ain't right to hev the young go fust. 

All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 
Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust 

To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 
Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, 

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, 
An' thet world seems so fur from this 

Lef ' for us loafers to grow gray in ! 



Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed 
For honor lost an' dear ones wasted. 

But proud, to meet a people proud. 
With eyes that tell o' triumph tasted! 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND 71 

Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, 
An^ step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! 

Longin' fer you, our sperits wilt 

Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 

Come, while our country feels the lift 

Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, 
An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 

Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! 
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when 

They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered. 
An' bring fair wages for brave men, 

A nation saved, a race dehvered! 

THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND 
Thorwald's Lay 

James R. Lowell 

So Biorn went comfortless but for his thought, 
And by his thought the more discomforted, 
Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast: 
And thither came he, called among the rest, 
Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth: 
But, ere deep draughts forbade such serious song 
As the grave Skald might chant nor after blush, 
Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he sat 
Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, 
And said, '^O Skald, sing now an olden song, 



72 AMERICAN POETRY 

Such as our fathers heard who led great lives; 

And, as the bravest on a shield is borne 

Along the waving host that shouts him king, 

So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!'' 

Then the old man arose, white-haired he stood. 

White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar 

From their still region of perpetual snow, 

Beyond the Httle smokes and stirs of men : 

His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years, 

As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine. 

But something triumphed in his brow and eye. 

Which whoso saw it could not see and crouch: 

Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused. 

Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagle 

Circles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods, 

So wheeled his soul into the air of song 

High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang: 

■^The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out 

Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light; 

And from a quiver full of such as these 

The wary bowman, matched against his peers, 

Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. 

Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Fate? 

What archer of his arrows is so choice. 

Or hits the white so surely? They are men, 

The chosen of her quiver; nor for her 

Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick 

At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked : 



THE VOYAGE TO V IN LAND 73 

Such answer household ends; but she will have 
Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound 
Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips 
All needless stuff, all sap wood; seasons them; 
From circumstance untoward feathers plucks 
Crumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will: 
The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: 
When she draws bow, 't is not across the wind. 
Nor Against the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings, 
For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: 
Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold 
In the butt^s heart her trembling messenger! 

'^The song is old and simple that I sing; 
But old and simple are despised as cheap. 
Though hardest to achieve of human things: 
Good were the days of yore, when men were tried 
By ring of shields, as now by ring of words; 
But while the gods are left, and hearts of men. 
And wide-doored ocean, still the days are good. 
Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity,^ 
Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. 
Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares 
That chatter loudest as they mean the least; 
Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means nevermore; 
Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.'' 
He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard 
Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass 



74 AMERICAN POETRY 

Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide 

Of interrupted wassail roared along; 

But Biorn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart 

Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, 

Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 

^^A ship,'' he muttered, '^is a winged bridge 

That leadeth every man to man's desire. 

And ocean the wide gate to manful luck;" 

And then with that resolve his heart was bent. 

Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripe 

Of day and night, across the unpathwayed seas 

Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands 

The first rune in the Saga of the West. 

1 Read the poem ^'Opportunity" by John J. Ingalls on page 93. 

VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE 

NIGHT 

Walt Whitman 

Walt Whitman is probably writing from his experience as a 
voluntary nurse in hospitals and on the field during the Civil 
War. Whitman's poetry is peculiar, but if we read it for the spirit 
pervading it, we shall not fail to find much in it. Read in con- 
nection with this poem '^The Warble for Lilac-Time'' and ^'O 
Captain ! My Captain ! " 

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night; 
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side 
that day, 



VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT 75 

One look I but gave which your dear eyes returned 

with a look I shall never forget, 
One touch of your hand to mine, boy, reached up as 

you lay on the ground, 
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested 

battle, 
Till late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I 

made my way. 
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade, found your 

body, son of responding kisses (never again on earth 

responding). 
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool 

blew the moderate night-wind. 
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me 

the battle-field spreading. 
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant 

silent night, 
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, 

long I gazed, 
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side 

leaning my chin in my hands. 
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with 

you, dearest comrade — not a tear, not a word. 
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son 

and my soldier. 
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones up- 
ward stole, 



76 AMERICAN POETRY 

Vigil final for 3^ou, brave boy, (I Qould not save you, 

swift was your death, 
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think 

we shall surely meet again,) 
Till at latest lingering of the niglit, indeed just bs the 

dawn appear^!. 
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop^ well his 

form, 
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head 

and carefully under feet. 
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my 

son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited. 
Ending my strange vigil with that, vigil of night and 

battlefield dim. 
Vigil for boy of responding kisses (never again on earth 

responding) 
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how 

as day brightened, 
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well 

in his blanket. 
And buried him where he fell. 



THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD 77. 

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD 
Theodore O'Hara 

"The Bivouac of the Dead" has reference to the same battle 
referred to in Whit tier's poem, ''The Angels of Buena Vista'' 
(see page 43). The American forces were far outnumbered in 
this battle: 23,000 Mexicans to 4691 Americans. The Northern 
troops lost over 700 in killed and wounded. In their honor, 
O'Hara wrote his poem. 

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo; 
No more on Life's parade shall meet 

That brave and fallen few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 

The bivouac of the dead. 

No rumor of the foe's advance 

Now swells upon the wind; 
No troubled thought at midnight haunts 

Of loved ones left behind; 
No vision of the morrow's strife 

The warrior's dream alarms; 
No braying horn nor screaming fife 

At dawn shall call to arms. 



78 AMERICAN POETRY 

Their shivered swords are red with rust, 

Their plumed heads are bowed; 
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, 

Is now their martial shroud. 
And plenteous funeral tears have washed 

The red stains from each brow, 
And the proud forms, by battle gashed, 

Are free from anguish now. 

The neighboring troop, the flashing blade, 

The buglers stirring blast. 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade. 

The din and shout, are past; 
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal 

Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that nevermore may feel 

The rapture of the fight. 

Like the fierce northern hurricane 

That sweeps his great plateau, 
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain. 

Came down the serried foe. 
Who heard the thunder of the fray 

Break o'er the field beneath, 
Knew well the watchword of that day 

Was '' Victory or Death." 

Long had the doubtful conflict raged 
O'er all that stricken plain, 



THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD 79 

For never fiercer fight had raged 

The vengeful blood of Spain. 
And still the storm of battle blew, 

Still swelled the gory tide; 
Not long our stout old chieftain knew, 

Such odds his strength could bide. 

'Twas in that hour his stern command 

Called to a martyr^s grave 
The flower of his beloved land. 

The nation^s flag to save. 
By rivers of their fathers' gore 

His first-born laurels grew, 
And well he deemed the sons would pour 

Their lives for glory too. 

Full many a norther's breath has swept 

O'er Angostura's plain, 
And long the pitying sky has wept 

Above its mouldered slain. 
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight 

Or shepherd's pensive lay, 
Alone awakes each sullen height 

That frowned o'er that dread fray. * 

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 

Ye must not slumber there. 
Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

x\long the heedless air. 



80 AMERICAN POETRY 

Your own proud land^s heroic soil 
Shall be your fitter grave: 

She claims from war his richest spoil — 
The ashes of her brave. 

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest^ 

Far from the gory field, 
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast 

On many a bloody shield; 
The sunshine of their native sky 

Smiles sadly on them here, 
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by 

The heroes' sepulcher. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! 

Dear as the blood ye gave; 
No impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave; 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps, 
On Honor points the hallowed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone 
In deathless song shall tell. 

When many a vanished age hath flown, 
The story how ye fell; 



THE SONG OF THE CAMP 81 

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter^s blight, 

Nor time's remorseless doom, 
Shall dim one ray of glory's light 

That gilds your deathless tomb. 



THE SONG OF THE CAMP 
Bayard Taylor 

*'The Song of the Camp" is one of the finest of Bayard Taylor^s 
poems. It was written in commemoration of the bravery of the 
EngUsh Troops in the Crimean War of 1854, when England went 
to the aid of Turkey in her war against Russia. 

^'GiVE US a song!'^ the soldiers cried, 

The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated guns of the camps allied 

Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff, 
Lay, grim and threatening, under; 

And the tawny mound of the Malakoff ^ 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. A guardsman said : 
^^We storm the forts to-morrow; 

Sing while we may, another day, 
Will bring enough of sorrow.'^ 



82 AMERICAN POETRY 

They lay^long the battery's side, 

Below tile smoking cannon; 
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, and not of fame; 

Forgot was Britain's glory: 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang ''Annie Laurie/' 

Voice after voice caught up the song. 

Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, — 

Their battle-eve confession. 

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak^ 
But, as the song grew louder. 

Something upon the soldier's cheek 
Washed off the stains of powder. 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean valleys ^ learned 

How English love remembers. 

And once again a fire of hell 
Rained on the Russian quarters. 

With scream of shot, and burst of shell. 
And bellowing of the mortars ! 



DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 83 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 
For a singer, dumb and gory; * 

And English Mary mourns for him 
Who sang of ^^ Annie Laurie." 

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 
Your truth and valor wearing: 

The bravest are the tenderest, — 
The loving are the daring. 

1 The Little Redan and Malakoff were fortifications which were 
under bombardment by the French in the Crimean War. 

2 The Crimean War was fought in Crimea, a peninsula of 
southern Russia between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. 
About* one-fourth of Crimea consists of beautiful mountains 
among which are the valleys mentioned. 

DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 

John Townsend Trowbridge 

If ever there lived a Yankee lad, 
Wise or otherwise, good or bad, 
Who, seeing the birds fly, didn't jump 
With flapping arms from stake or stump. 

Or, spreading the tail 

Of his coat for a sail 
Take a soaring leap from post or rail. 

And wonder why 

He couldn't fly, 



84 AMERICAN POETRY 

And flap and flutter and wish and try — 
If ever you knew a country dunce 
Who didn^t try that as often as once, . 
All I can say is, that^s a sign 
He never would do for a hero of mine. 

An aspiring genius was D. Green: 

The son of a farmer, age fourteen; 

His body was long and lank and lean, — 

Just right for flying, as will be seen; 

He had two eyes as bright as a bean, 

And a freckled nose that grew between, 

A little awry- — for I must mention 

That he had riveted his attention 

Upon his wonderful invention. 

Twisting his tongue as he twisted the strings. 

And working his face as he worked the wings, 

And with every turn of gimlet and screw 

Turning and screwing his mouth round too, 

Till his nose seemed bent 

To catch the scent, 
Around some corner, of new-baked pies, 
And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes 
Grew puckered into a queer grimace, 
That made him look very droll in the face, 

And also very wise. 
And wise he must have been, to do more 
Than ever a genius did before. 



DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 85 

Excepting Daedalus of yore 
And his son Icarus, wJbo wore 

Upon their backs 

Those wings of wax 
He had read of in the old almanacks. 
Darius was clearly of the opinion 
That the air is also man^s dominion, 
And that, with paddle or fin or pinion, 

We soon or late shall navigate 
The azure as now we sail the sea. 
The thing looks simple enough to me; 

And if you doubt it, 
Hear how Darius reasoned about it. 

'^The birds can fly an' why can't I? 

Must we give in,'' says he with a grin, 

'^That the bluebird an' phoebe 

Are smarter'n we be? 
Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller 
An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? 
Does the little chatterin', sassy wren, 
No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? 

Jest show me that ! 

Ur prove 't the bat 
Hez got more brains than's in my hat. 
An' I'll back down, an' not till then!" 
He argued further: ^^Nur I can't see 
What's the use o' wings to a bumble-bee, 
Fur to get a livin' with, more'n to me; — 



86 AMERICAN POETRY 

Ain^t my business 

Important^s his^n is? 

That Icarus 

Made a purty muss — 
Him an^ his daddy Daedalus 
They might 'a^ knowed wings made o^ wax 
Wouldn't stand sun-heat an' hard whacks. 

Ill make mine o' luther, ^ 

Ur suthin' ur other. '^ 
And he said to himself as he tinkered and planned 
^^But I ain't goin' to show my hand 
To mummies that never can understand 
The fust idee that's big an' grand." 

So he kept his secret from all the rest, 

Safely buttoned within his vest; 

And in the loft above the shed 

Himself he locks, with thimble and thread 

And wax and hammer and buckles and screws, 

And all such things as geniuses use; — 

Two bats for patterns, curious fellows! 

A charcoal-pot and a pair of bellows; 

Some wire and several old umbrellas; 

A carriage-cover, for tail and wings ; 

A piece of harness; and straps and strings; 

And a big strong box, 

In which he locks 
These and a hundred other things. 



DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 87 

His grinning brothers, Reuben and Burke 

And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk 

Around the corner to see him work — 

Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, 

Drawing the waxed-end through with a jerk, 

And boring the holes with a comical quirk 

Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. 

But vainly they mounted each other^s backs, 

And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; 

With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks 

He plugged the knot-holes and caulked the cracks; 

And a dipper of water, which one would think 

He had brought up into the loft to drink 

When he chanced to be dry. 

Stood always nigh. 

For Darius was sly! 
And whenever at work he happened to spy 
At chink or crevice a blinking eye. 
He let the dipper of water fly. 
'^Take that! an' ef ever ye get a peep, 
Guess ye'll ketch a weasel asleep !'' 

And he sings as he locks 

His big strong box: — 

'^The weaseFs head is small and trim, 
An' he is little an' long an' slim. 
An' quick of motion an' nimble of limb, 
An' ef you'll be 
Advised by me, 



88 AMERICAN POETRY 

Keep wide awake when you^re ketchin' him!^' 

So day after day 
He stitched and tinkered and hammered away, 

Till at last 'twas done — 
The greatest invention under the sun ! 
^'An' now/' says Darius, '^hooray fur some fun!'' 

'Twas the Fourth of July, 

And the weather was dry, 
And not a cloud was on all the sky. 
Save a few light fleeces, which here and there, 

Half mist, half air, 
Like foam on the ocean went floating by- 
Just as lovely a morning as ever .was seen 
For a nice little trip in a flying machine. 
Thought cunning Darius: ^^Now I shan't go 
Along 'ith the fellers to see the show. 
I'll say I've got sich a terrible cough! 
An' then, when the folks 'ave all gone off^ 
I'll hev full swing fur to try the thing, 
An' practise a little on the wing." 

^^ Ain't goin' to see the celebration?" 
Says brother Nate. ^^No; botheration! 
I've got sich a cold — a toothache — I — 
My gracious! feel's though I should fly!" 

Said Jotham, ^^'Sho! 

Guess ye better go." 



DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 89 

But Darius said, ^^No! 
Shouldn't wonder 'f you might see me, though, 
'Long 'bout noon, ef I git red 
O' this jumpin', thumpin' pain'n my head." 
For all the while to himself he said : — 

'^I tell ye what! 
ril fly a few times around the lot, 
To see how't seems, then soon's I've got 
The hang o' the thing, ez likely's not, 

I'll astonish the nation, 

An' all creation. 
By flyin' over the celebration ! 
Over their heads I'll sail like an eagle; 
I'll balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull; 
I'll dance on the chimbleys; I'll stand on the steeple; 
I'll flop up to winders an scare the people! 
I'll light on the liberty-pole, an' crow; 
An' I'll say to the gawpin' fools below, 

'What world's this 'ere 

That I've come near? ' 
Fur I'll make 'em b'lieve I'm a chap f'm the moon; 
An' I'll try a race 'ith their ol' bulloon!" 

He crept from his bed; 
And, seeing the others were gone, he said, 
''I'm gittin' over the cold'n my head." 

And away he sped, 
To open the wonderful box in the shed. 



90 AMERICAN POETRY 

His brothers had walked but a little way, 

When Jotham to Nathan chanced to say, 

'^ What is the feller up to, hey?'' 

'^ Don'o' — the's suthin' ur other to pay, 

Ur he wouldn't 'a' stayed to hum to-day." 

Says Burke, '^His toothache's all 'n his eye! 

He never'd miss a Fo'th-o'-July 

Ef he hedn't got some machine to try." 

Then Sol, the little one spoke: '^By darn! 

Le's hurry back an' hide'n the barn. 

An' pay him fur tellin' us that yarn!" 

'^Agreed!" Through the orchard they creep back, 

Along by the fences, behind the stack. 

And one by one, through a hole in the wall, 

In under the dusty barn they crawl, 

Dressed in their Sunday garments all; 

And a very astonishing sight was that, 

When each in his cobwebbed coat and hat 

Came up through the floor like an ancient rat. 

And there they hid; 

And Reubin slid ' 

The fastenings back, and the door undid. 

'^Keep dark!" said he, 
'^ While I squint an' see what the' is to see." 

As knights of old put on their mail — 

From head to foot an iron suit. 
Iron jacket and iron boot, 



DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE 91 

Iron breeches, and on the head 
No hat, but an ii'on pot instead, 

And under the chin the bail, 
(I believe they called the thing a helm,) 
Then sallied forth to overwhelm 
The dragons and pagans that plagued the realm — 

So this modern knight 

Prepared for flight. 
Put on his wings and strapped them tight; 
Jointed and jaunty, strong and light — 
Buckled them fast to shoulder and hip; 
Ten feet they measured from tip to tip ! 
And a helm had he, but that he wore, 
Not on his bead, like those of yore, 

But more like the helm of a ship. 

^^Hush!^^ Reuben said, 

"He's up in the shed! 
He^s opened the winder — I see his head ! 
He stretches it out, an' pokes it about, 
Lookin' to see 'f the coast is clear, 

An' nobody near; — 
Guess he don'o' who's hid in here! 
He's riggin' a spring-board over the sill ! 
Stop lafRn', Solomon! Burke, keep still! 
He's a climbin' out now — Of all the things! 
What's he got on? I van, it's wings! 
An' that 'tother thing? I vum, it's a tail! • 



92 AMERICAN POETRY 

An' there he^sets like a hawk on a mil! 

Stepf)in' careful, he travels the length 

Of his spring-board, and teeters to try its strength. 

Now he stretches his wings, like a monstrous bat; 

Peeks over his shoulder; this way an' that, 

Fur to see 'f the' 's any one passin' by; 

But the' 's on'y a ca'f an' a goslin' nigh. 

They turn up at him a wonderin' eye, 

To see — The dragon! he's goin' to fly! 

Away he goes! Jimminy! what a jump! 

Flop — flop — an' plump 

To the ground with a thump ! 
Flutt'rin' an' flound'rin, all'n a lump!" 

As a demon is hurled by an angel's spear. 
Heels over head, to his proper sphere- 
Heels over head, and head over heels, 
Dizzily down the abyss he wheels — 
So fell Darius. Upon his crown, 
In the midst of the barnyard he came down, 
In a wonderful whirl of tangled strings, 
Broken braces and broken springs. 
Broken tail and broken wings, 
Shooting-stars, and various things; 
Barn-yard litter of straw and chaff. 
And much that wasn't so sweet by half. 
Away with a bellow fled the calf, 
And what was that? Did the gosling laugh? 



OPPORTUNITY 93 

'Tis a merry roar from the old barn-door, 

And he hears the voice of Jotham crying, 

''Say, D'rius! how do you hke flyin'?'' 

Slowly, ruefully, where he lay, 

Darius just turned and looked that way. 

As he staunched his sorrowful nose with his cuff. 

''Wal, I like flyin' well enough,'' 

He said; ''but the' ain't sich a thunderin' sight 

O' fun in 't when ye come to light." 

I just have room for the moral here: 

And this is the moral — Stick to 3^our sphere. 

Or if you insist, as you have a right, 

On spreading your wings for a loftier flight, 

The moral is — Take care how you light. 



OPPORTUNITY 
John James Ingalls 

Master of human destinies am I! 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 

I knock unbidden once at every gate ! 
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate 



94 AMERICAN POETRY 

And they who follow me reach every state 
Mox'tals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate 
Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I retui'n no more! 

THE HAND OF LINCOLN 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 

Look on this cast, and know the hand 

That bore a nation in its hold; 
From this mute witness understand 

What Lincoln was,— how large of mould. 

The man who sped the woodman's team, 
And deepest sunk the ploughman's share. 

And pushed the laden raft astream. 
Of fate before him unaware. 

This was the hand that knew to swing . 

The axe — since thus would Freedom train 
Her son — and made the forest ring, 

And drove the wedge, and toiled amain. 

Firm hand, that loftier office took, 
A conscious leader's will obeyed. 

And, when men sought his word and look, 
With steadfast might the gathering swayed. 



THE HAND OF LINCOLN 95 

No courtier's, toying with a sword, 

Nor miristrers, laid across a lute; 
A chief's, uplifted to the Lord 

When all the Kings of earth were mute! 

The hand of Anak/ sinewed strong, 
The fingers that on greatness clutch; 

Yet, lo ! the marks their lines along 
Of one who strove and suffered much. 

For here in knotted cord and vein 
I trace the varying chart of years; 

I know the troubled heart, the strain, 
The weight of Atlas ^ — and the tears. 

Again I see the patient brow 

That palm erewhile was wont to press; 
And now 'tis furrowed deep, and now 

Made smooth with hope and tenderness. 

For something of a formless grace 
This moulded outline plays about; 

A pitying flame, beyond our trace. 
Breathes like a spirit, in and out, — 

The love that cast an aureole 

Round one who, longer to endure. 
Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole, 

Yet kept his nobler purpose sure. 



96 AMERICAN POETRY 

Lo, as I gaze, the 8t at iired man, 

Built up from yon large hand, appears: 

A type that Nature wills to plan 
But once in all a people's years. 

What better than this voiceless cast 

To tell of such a one as he, 
Since through its living semblance passed 

The thought that bade a race be free ! 

1 Anak was a leader noted in sacred history for his great stature. 

2 Atlas was a Titan who, according to Greek mythology, was 
condemned by Jupiter to bear the vault of heaven upon his 
mighty shoulders. 



PAN IN WALL STREET 
A. D. 1867 

Edmund C. Stedman 

For a number of years Stedman was a member of the New York 
Stock Exchange. This poem is founded on one of the incidents 
connected with that period of his life. 

Just where the Treasury's marble front 
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations; 

Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont 
To throng for trade and last quotations; 



PAN IN WALL STREET 97 

Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold 

Outrival, in tlie ears of people. 
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled 

From Trinity^s undaunted steeple, — • 

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain 

Sound high above the modern clamor, 
Above the cries of greed and gain, 

The curbstone's war, the auction's hammer; 
And swift, on Music's misty ways, 

It led, from all this strife for millions, 
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days 

Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians. 

And as it stilled the multitude. 

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, 
I saw the minstrel where he stood 

At ease against a Doric pillar: 
One hand a droning organ played. 

The other held a Pan's ^ pipe (fashioned 
Like those of old) to lips that made 

The reeds give out that strain impassioned. 

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here 

A-strolling through this sordid city. 
And piping to the civic ear 

The prelude of some pastoral ditty! 



98 AMERICAN POETRY 

The demigod had crossed the seas,— 

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr. 

And Syracusan times, — to these 

Far shores and twenty centuries later. 

A ragged cap was on his head; 

But — chidden thus — there was no doubting 
That, all with crispy locks overspread, 

His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; 
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, 

Were crossed as on some frieze you see them, 
And trousers, patched of divers hues. 

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them. 

He filled the quivering reeds with sound, 

And o'er his mouth their changes shifted. 
And with his goat's-eyes looked around 

Where'er the passing current drifted; 
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills 

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him. 
Even now the tradesmen from their tills 

With clerks and porters, crowded near him. 

The bulls and bears together drew 

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, • 
As erst, if pastorals be true. 

Came beasts from every wooded valley; 



PAN IN WALL STREET 99 

And random passers staid to list,— 

A boxer ^gon, rough and merry, 
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst 

With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry. 

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long 

In tattered eloak of army pattern, 
And Galatea joined the throng, — 

A blowsy apple-vending slattern; 
While old Silenus staggered out 

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, 
And bade the piper, with a shout. 

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy! 

A newsboy and a peanut-girl 

Like little fauns began to caper; 
His hair was all in tangled curl. 

Her tawny legs were bare and taper; 
And still the gathering larger grew, 

And gave its pence and crowded nigher. 
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew 

His pipe, and struck the gamut higher. 

O heart of Nature, beating still 

With throbs her vernal passion taught her,^ — 
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill, 

Or by the Arethusan water! 



100 AMERICAN POETRY 

New forms may fold the speech, new lands 

Aiise within these ocean-portals 
But Music waves eternal wands, — ■ 

Enchantress of the souls of mortals! 

So thought I, — but among us trod 

A man in blue, with legal baton, 
And scoffed the vagrant demigod, 

And pushed him from the step I sat on. 
Doubting I mused upon the cry, 

^^ Great Pan is dead!'^ — -and all the people 
Went on their ways: — and clear and high 

The quarter sounded from the steeple. 

^ For the classical allusions in this poem the pupil is referred to 
either Gay ley's Classic Myths or Bulfinch's Age of Fable. 

HOW WE BECAME A NATION 
Harriet Prescott Spofford 

This poem refers to events taking place in Boston, April 15, 
1774. 

When George the King would punish folk 

Who dared resist his angry will — 
Resist him with their hearts of oak 
That neither King nor Council broke — 
He told Lord North to mend his quill, 
And sent his Parliament a Bill. 



HOW WE BECAME A NATION lOl 

The Bosiron Port Bill was the thing 

lie flourished in his royal hand; 
A subtle lash with scorpion sting, 
Across the seas he made it swing, 

And with its cruel thong he planned 

To quell the disobedient land. 

His minions heard it sing, and bare 

The port of Boston felt its wrath; 
They let no ship cast anchor there, 
They summoned Hunger and Despair, — 

And curses in an aftermath 

Followed their desolating path. 

No coal might enter there, nor wood. 

Nor Holland flax, nor silk from France; 

No drugs for dying pangs, no food 

For any mother^s little brood. 

^^ Now,'' said the King, ^^ we have our chance. 
We'll lead the haughty knaves a dance." 

No other flags lit up the bay. 

Like full blown blossoms in the air, 

Than where the British war-ships lay; 

The wharves were idle; all the day 

The idle men, grown gaunt and spare. 
Saw trouble, pall-like, everywhere. 



102 AMERICAN POETRY 

Then in across the meadow land, 

From lonely farm and hunter's tent, 

From fertile field and fallow strand, 

Pouring it out with lavish hand, 

The neighboring burghs their bounty sent. 
And laughed at King and ParHament. 

To bring them succor, Marblehead 

Joyous her deep-sea fishing sought. 

Her trees, with ringing stroke and tread. 

Old many-rivered Newbury sped, 

And Groton in her granaries wrought 
And generous flocks old Windham brought. 

Rice from the Carolinas came. 

Iron from Pennsylvania's forge. 

And, with a spirit all aflame, 

Tobacco-leaf and corn and game 

The Midlands sent; and in his gorge 
The Colonies defied King George ! 

And Hartford hung, in black array, 

Her town-house, and at half-mast there 

The flags flowed, and the bells all day 

Tolled heavily; and far away 

In great Virginia's solemn air 

The House of Burgesses held prayer. 

Down long glades of the forest floor 

The same thrill ran through every vein, 



JIM BLUDSO OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE 103 

And down the long Atlantic's shore; 
Its heat the tyrant's fetters tore 

And welded them through stress and strain 

Of long years to a mightier chain. 

That mighty chain with links of steel 
Round all the Old Thirteen at last, 

Through one electric pulse to feel 

The common woe, the common weal. 

And that great day the Port Bill passed 
Made us a nation hard and fast. 



JIM BLUDSO OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE 
Pike County Ballads 

John Hay 

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives, 

Because he don't live, you see; 
Leastways, he's got out of the habit 

Of livin' like you and me. 
Whar have you been for the last three year 

That you haven't heard folks tell 
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks 

The night of the Prairie Belle? 

He weren't no saint,— -them engineers . 
Is all pretty much alike,— 



104 AMERICAN POETRY 

One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill ' 
And another one here, in Pike; 

A keerless man in his talk was Jim, 
And an awkward hand in a row, 

But he never flunked, and he never Hed, — 
I reckon he never knowed how. 

And this was all the religion he had, — 

To treat his engine well; 
Never be passed on the river; 

To mind the pilot's bell; 
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, — 

A thousand times he swore 
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last soul got ashore. 

All boats has their day on the Mississip, 

And her day come at last, — 
The Movastar was a better boat. 

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed. 
And so she came tearin' along that night — 

The oldest craft on the line — ^ 
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, 

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. 

The fire bust out as she clared the bar, 
And burnt a hole in the night, 

And quick as a flash she turned, and made 
For that wilier-bank on the right. 



JIM BLUDSO OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE 105 

There was runnin^ and cursin', but Jim yelled out, 

Over all the infernal roar, 
'^1^11 hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last galoot's ashore/' 

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat 

Jim Bludso's voice was heard. 
And they all had trust in his cussedness, 

And knowed he would keep his word. 
And, sure's you're born, they all got off 

Afore the smokestacks fell, — 
And Bludso's ghost went up alone 

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. 

He weren't no saint, — but at jedgment 

I'd run my chance with Jim, 
'Longside of some pious gentlemen 

That wouldn't shook hands with him. 
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, — 

And went for it thar and then ; 
And Christ ain't a going to be too hard 

On a man that died for men. 



106 AMERICAN POETRY 

LIBERTY 

John Hay 

What man is there so bold that he should say, 

^^Thus, and thus only, would I have the Sea?'' 

For whether lying calm and beautiful, 

Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back 

The smile of Heaven from waves of amethyst; 

Or whether, freshened by the busy winds. 

It bears the trade and navies of the world 

To ends of use or stern activity; 

Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way 

To elemental fury, howls and roars 

At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust 

Of ruin drinks the blood of living things. 

And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate shore,- 

Always it is the Sea, and men bow down 

Before its vast and varied majesty. 

So all in vain will timorous ones essay 
To set the metes and bounds of Liberty. 
For Freedom is its own eternal law: 
It makes its own conditions, and in storm 
Or calm alike fulfills the unerring Will. 
Let us not then despise it when it lies 
Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm 
Of gnat-like evils hover round its head; 



PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES 107 

Nor doul^t it when in ma,d, disjointed times 

It shakes the torch of terror, and its cry 

Shrills o^er the quaking earth, and in the flame 

Of riot and war we see its awful form 

Rise by the scaffold, where the crimson axe 

Rings down its grooves the knell of shuddering kings. 

For ever in thine eyes, O Liberty, 

Shines that high light whereby the world is saved. 

And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee! 



PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES 
Francis Bret Harte 

Which I wish to remark, — 

And my language is plain, — 
That for ways that are dark 

And for tricks that are vain. 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, 
Which the same I would rise to explain. 

Ah Sin was his name; 

And I shall not deny 
In regard to the same 

Which that name might imply. 
But his smile it was pensive and childlike, 
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye. 



108 AMERICAN POETRY 

It was August the third; 

And quite soft was the skies; 
Which it might be inferred 

That Ah Sin was hkewise; 
Yet he played it that day upon WiUiam 
And me in a way I despise. 

Which we had a small game, 

And Ah Sin took a hand : 
It was Euchre. The same 

He did not understand; 
But he smiled as he sat by the table, 
With the smile that was childlike and bland, 

Yet the cards they were stocked 

In a wa3^ that I grieve, 
And my feelings were shocked 

At the state of Nye^s sleeve : 
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers. 
And the same with intent to deceive. 

But the hands that were played 

By that heathen Chinee, 
And the points that he made. 

Were quite frightful to see, — 
Till at last he put down a right bower. 
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me. 



PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES 109 

Then I looked up at Nye, 

And he gazed upon me; 
And he rose with a sigh, 

And said, ^^Can this be? 
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,'' — 
And he went for that heathen Chinee. 

In the scene that ensued 

I did not take a hand, 
But the floor it was strewed 

Like the leaves on the strand 
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding. 
In the game '^he did not understand.'' 

In his sleeves, which were long. 

He had twenty-four packs, — 
Which was coming it strong, 

Yet I state but the facts; 
And we found on his nails, which were taper, 
What is frequent in tapers, — that's wax. 

Which is why I remark. 

And my language is plain, 
That for ways that are dark, 

And for tricks that are vain, 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, — 
Which the same I am free to maintain. 



110 AMERICAN POETRY 

FORCE 
Edward Rowland Sill 

The stars know a secret 
They do not tell; 

And morn brings a message 
Hidden well. 

There's a blush on the apple, 
A tint on the wing, 

And the bright wind whistles. 
And the pulses sting. 

Perish dark memories! 

There's light ahead; 
This world's for the living, 

Not for the dead. 

In the shining city, 
On the loud pave, 

The life-tide is running, 
Like a leaping wave. 

How the stream quickens, 
As noon draws near! 

No room for loiterers, 
No time for fear. 



FORCE 111 

Out on the farm lands 

Earth smiles as well; 
Gold-crusted grainfields, 

With sweet, warm smell; 

Whir of the reaper, 

Like a giant bee; 
Like a Titan cricket, 

Thrilling with glee. 

On mart and meadow. 

Pavement or plain; 
On azure mountain. 

Or azure main, — 

Heaven bends in blessing; 

Lost is but won; 
Goes the good rain-cloud, 

Comes the good sun: 

Only babes whimper, 

And sick men wail, 
And faint hearts and feeble hearts, 

And weakKngs fail. 

Down the great currents 

Let the boat swing; 
There was never winter 

But brought the spring. 



112 AMERICAN POETRY 

LIFE 

Edward R. Sill 

Forenoon and afternoon and night, — Forenoon, 
And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and — ^what! 
The empty song repeats itself. No more? 
Yea, that is Life: make this forenoon subhme, 
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 
And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 

^^WHEN WITH THEIR COUNTRY^S ANGER'' 
Richard Watson Gilder 

When with their country's anger 

They flame into the fight — 
On sea, in treacherous forest. 

To strike with main and might, — 

He shows the gentlest mercy 
Who rains the deadliest blows; 

Then quick war's hell is ended, 
And home the hero goes. 

What stays the noblest memory 

For all his years to keep? 
Not of the foemen slaughtered. 

But rescued from the deep! 



THE DAY AND THE WORK 113 

Resc^ued with peerless daring! 

(), jiono shall forget that sight, 
When the unaimed cannon thundered 

In the ghastly after-fight. 

And, now, in the breast of the hero 
There blooms a strange, new flower, 

A blood-red, fragrant blossom 
Sown in the battle-hour. 

^Tis not the Love of Comrades, — 

That flower forever blows, — 
But the brave man^s Love of Courage, 

The Love of Comrade-Foes. 

For since the beginning of battles 

On the land and on the wave, 
Heroes have answered to heroes, 

The brave have honored the brave. 

THE DAY AND THE WORK * 

Edwin Markham 

To each man is given a day and his work for the day; 
And once, and no more, he is given to travel this way. 
And woe if he flies from the task, whatever the odds; 
For the task is appointed to him on the scroll of the gods. 

* Revised, 1919. Copyright, 1919, hy Edwin Markham. 



114 AMERICAN POETRY 

There is waiting a work where only your hands can 

avail; 
And so if you falter, a chord in the music will fail. 
We may laugh to the sky, we may lie for an hour in 

the sun; 
But we dare not go hence till the labor appointed is 

done. 

To each man is given a marble to carve for the wall, 
A stone that is needed to heighten the beauty of all; 
And only his soul has the magic to give it a grace, 
And only his hands have the cunning to put it in place. 

We are given one hour to parley and struggle with Fate, 
Our wild hearts filled with the dream, our brains with 

the high debate. 
It is given to look on life once, and once only to die: 
One testing,' and then at a sign we go out of this sky. 

Yes, the task that is given to each man no other can do: 
So the work is awaiting: it has waited through ages for 

you. 
And now you appear; and the Hushed Ones are turning 

their gaze 
To see what you do with your chance in the chamber 

of days. 



LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 115 

LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE * 

Edwin Markham 

When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — • 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, 
Dasht through it all a strain of prophecy; 
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears; 
Then mixt a laughter with the serious stuff. 
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light 
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face; 
And laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers, 
Moving — all husht — behind the mortal vail. 
Here was a man to hold against the world, 
A man to match the mountains and the sea. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth; 

The smack and tang of elemental things: 

The rectitude and patience of the cliff; 

The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves; 

The friendly welcome of the wayside well; 

The courage of the bird that dares the sea; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; 

* Revised, 1919. Copyright, 1919, by Edwin Markham. 



116 AMERICAN POETRY 

The pity of the snow that Iiides all scars; 

'The secrecy of streams that make their way 

Under the mountain to the rifted rock; 

The tolerance and equity of light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking flower 

As to the great oak flaring to the wind — • 

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 

That shoulders out the sky. Sprung from the West, 

He drank the valorous youth of a new world. 

The strength of virgin forests braced his mind, 

The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. 

His words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts 

Were roots that firmly gript the granite truth. 

Up from log cabin to the Gapitol, 

One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — 

To send the keen ax to the root of wrong, 

Clearing a free way for the feet of God, 

The eyes of conscience testing every stroke. 

To make his deed the measure of a man. 

With the fine gesture of a kingly soul, 

He built the rail-pile and he built the State, 

Pouring his splendid strength through every blow: 

The grip that swung the ax in Illinois 

Was on the pen that set a people free. 

So came the Captain with the mighty heart; 
And when the judgment thunders split the house, 



THE MAN WITH THE HOE 117 

Wreiicliiiig the rafteivs from their ancient reat, 
lie held the ridgepole up, and spikt again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As w^hen a lordly cedar, green with boughs, 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills. 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 



THE MAN WITH THE HOE* 
Edwin Markham 

^'God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
created He him." 

Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans 

Upon his hoe ^ and gazes on the ground, 

The emptiness of ages in his face 

And on his back the burden of the world. 

Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 

A thing that grieves not and that never hopes. 

Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? 

Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? 

Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? 

Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? 

* Revised, 1919. Copyright, 1919, by Edwin Markham. 



118 AMERICAN POETRY 

Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave 

To liave dommioii ovct fsea and land; 

To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; 

To feel the passion of eternity? 

Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the smis 

And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? 

Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf 

There is no shape more terrible than this — 

More tongued with censure of the w^orld's blind greed — 

More filled with signs and portents for the. soul — 

More packt with danger to the universe. 

What gulfs between him and the seraphim! 
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him 
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? 
What the long reaches of the peaks of song, 
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? 
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; 
Timers tragedy is in that aching stoop; 
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
Plundered, profaned and disinherited, 
Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
A protest that is dso prophecy. 

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 

Is this the handiwork you give to God, 

This monstrous thing, distorted and soul-quenched? 

How will 3^ou ever straighten up this shape; 



THE NAME OF FRANCE 119 

Touch it again with immortaJity; 
Give back the upward looking and the hght; 
Rebuild in it the music and the dream; 
Make right the immemorial infamies, 
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? 

masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 

How will the future reckon with this man? 

How answer his brute question in that hour 

When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? 

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — 

With those who shaped him to the thing he is — 

When this dumb terror shall appeal to God, 

After the silence of the centuries? 

^ Millet's painting, ^'The Man with the Hoe/' was the inspira- 
tion for this poem. 

THE NAME OF FRANCE* 
Henry Van Dyke 

This poem is typical of the spirit underlying the great cause in 
which we joined with the Allies. Of these perhaps France has 
suffered and endured the most. 

Give us a name to fill the mind 

With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, 

The glory of learning, the joy of art, — 

A name that tells of a splendid part 

* Reprinted from The Red Flower by Henry Van Dyke, through 
courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons. 



120 AMERICAN POETRY 

In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight 
Of the human race to win its way 
Frona the feudal darkness into the day 
Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right, — 
A name like a star, a name of light. 
I give you France! 

Give us a name to stir the blood 
With a warmer glow and a swifter flood, — 
A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, 
And silver-sweet, and iron-strong, 
That calls three million men to their feet, 
Ready to march, and steady to meet 
The foes who threaten that name with wrong, — 
A name that rings like a battle-song. 
I give you France! 

Give us a name to move the heart 
With the strength that noble griefs imp&.rt, 
A name that speaks of the blood outpoured 
To save mankind from the sway of the sword, — 
A name that calls on the world to share 
In the burden of sacrificial strife 
Where the cause at stake is the world's free life 
And the rule of the people everywhere,^ — 
A name like a vow, a name like a prayer. 
I give you France! 



THE RED CROSS SPIRIT SPEAKS 121 

THE RED CROSS SPIRIT SPEAKS 
John Finley 

This noble poem in praise of the self-sacrificing group of men 
and women who compose the Red Cross reflects the spirit of 
that organization. It is one of the many poems growing out 
of The Great War. 

Wherever war, with its red woes, 
Or flood, or fire, or famine goes. 

There, too, go I; , 

If earth in any quarter quakes 
Or pestilence its ravage makes, 

Thither I fly. 

I kneel behind the soldier^s trench, 

I walk 'mid shambles' smear and stench, 

The dead I mourn; 
I bear the stretcher and I bend 
O'er Fritz and Pierre and Jack to mend 

What shells have torn. 

I go wherever men may dare, 
I go wherever woman's care 

And love can live. 
Wherever strength and skill can bring 
Surcease to human suffering, 

Or solace give. 



122 AMERICAN POETRY 

I helped upon Haldora^s shore; 
With Hospitaller Knights ^ I bore 

The first red cross; 
I was the Lady of the Lamp; 
I saw in Solferino's 2 camp 

The crimson loss. 

I am your pennies and your pounds; 
I am your bodies on their rounds 

Of pain afar; 
I am yoUj doing what you would 
If you were only where you could — 

Your avatar. 

The cross w^hich on my arm I wear, 
The flag which o^er my breast I bear, 

Is but the sign 
Of what you'd sacrifice for him 
AVho suffers on the hellish rim 

Of war's red line. 

^ Hospitaller Knights were Knights of St. John and were the 
first of organized bodies to care for the sick and wounded. An 
order was founded in America in 1889. 

2 Solferino, Italy, was the scene of a battle in 1859. 



THE SINGING MAN ' 123 

THE SINGING MAN 
Josephine Preston Peabody 

I 

He sang above the vineyards of the world. 

And after hhn the vines with woven hands 
Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled 

Triumphing green above the barren lands; 
Till high as gardens grow, he climbed, he stood, 

Sun-crowned with life and strength, and singing toil, 
And looked upon his work; and it was good: 
The corn, the wine, the oil. 

He sang above the noon. The topmost cleft 

That grudged him footing on the mountain scars 

He planted and despaired not; till he left 
His vines soft breathing to the host of stars. 

He wrought, he tilled; and even as he sang, 
The creatures of his planting laughed to scorn 

The ancient threat of deserts where there sprang 
The wine, the oil, the corn. 

He sang not for abundance. — Over-lords • 
Took of his tilth. Yet was there still to reap. 

The portion of his labor; dear rewards 

Of sunlit day, and bread, and human sleep. 



124 AMERICAN POETRY 

He sang for strength; for glory of the hght, 

lie dreamed above the furrows, ^They are mine! 
When all he wrought stood fair before his sight 
With corn, and oil, and wine. 

Truly J the light is sweet 

Yea, and a pleasant thing 
It is to see the Sun, 
And that a man should eat 

His bread that he hath won; — 
(So is it sung and said), 

That he shoidd take and keep, 
After his laboring, 
The portion of his labor in his bread, 

His bread that he hath won; 

Yea, and in quiet sleep. 
When all is done. 

He sang; above the burden and the heat, 
Above all seasons with their fitful grace; 

Above the chance and change that led his feet 
To this last ambush of the Market-place. 

'Enoiigh for him,' they said — and still they say — 
^A crust with air to breathe, and sun to shine; 

He asks no more!' — Before they took away 
The corn, the oil, the wine. 

He sang. No more he sings now, anywhere. 
Light was enough, before he was undone. 



THE SINGING MAN 12S 

They knew it well, who took away the air^ 

—Who took away the sun; 
AYho took, to serve their soul-devouring greed, 

Himself, his breath, his bread — the goad of toil; — 
Who have and hold, before the eyes of Need, 
The corn, the wine,— the oil! 

Truly J one thing is sweet 

Of things beneath the Sun; 
This J that a man should earn his bread and eat. 
Rejoicing in his work which he hath done. 
What shall be sung or said 

Of desolate deceit, 
When others take his bread; 
His and his children's bread f — 
And the laborer hath none. 
This, for his portion now, of all that he hath done. 
He earns; and others eat. 
He starves; — they sit at meat 
Who have taken away the Sun. 

II 

Seek him now, that singing Man. 

Look for him. 

Look for him 

In the mills. 

In the mines; 

Where the very daylight pines, — 

He, who once did walk the hills! 



126 AMERICAN POETRY 

You shall find him, if you scan 
Shapes all unbefitting Man, 
Bodies warped, and faces dim. 
In the mines; in the mills 
Where the ceaseless thunder fills 
Spaces of the human brain 
Till all thought is turned to pain. 
Where the skirl of wheel on wheel, 
Grinding him who is their tool, 
Makes the shattered senses reel 
To the numbness of the fool. 
Perisht thought, and halting tongue — 
(Once it spoke; — once it sung!) 
Live to hunger, dead to song. 
Only heart-beats loud with wrong 
Hammer on, — How long? 
. . . How long? — How long? 

Search for him; 

Search for him; 

Where the crazy atoms swim 

Up the fiery furnace-blast. 

You shall find him, at the last, — 

He whose forehead braved the sun, — 

Wreckt and tortured and undone. 

Where no breath across the heat 

Whispers him that life was sweet; 

But the sparkles mock pjid flare, 



THE SINGING MAN 127 

Scattering up the crooked air. 
(Blackened with that bitter mirk, — 
Would God know His handiwork?) 
Thought is not for such as he; 
Naught but strength, and misery, 
Since, for just the bite and sup, 
Life must needs be swallowed upo 
Only, reeling up the sky. 
Hurtling flames that hurry by, 
Gasp and flare. Why — TF%, 
. . . Why? ... 

Why the human mind of him 
Shrinks, and falters, and is dim 
When he tries to make it out : 
What the torture is about. — 
Why he breathes, a fugitive 
Whom the World forbids to live. 
Why he earned for his abode. 
Habitation of the toad ! 
Why his fevered day by day 
Will not serve to drive away 
Horror that must always haunt : — 
. . . Want . . . Wa7it! 
Nightmare shot with waking pangs;— 
Tightening coil, and certain fangs. 
Close and closer, always nigh . . . 
. . . Whjf . . . Why? 



128 . AMERICAN POETRY 

Why he labors under ban 
That denies hun for a man. 
Why his utmost drop of blood 
Buys for him no human good; 
Why his utmost urge of strength 
Only lets them starve at length; 
Will not let him starve alone; 
He must watch, and see his own 
Fade and fail, and starve, and die. 

. . . Why? . . . Why? 

Heart-beats, in a hammering song, 
Heavy as an ox may plod. 
Goaded — goaded — faint with wrong, 
Cry unto some ghost of God 
. . . HoiD long? . . . How long? 
..... How long? 

Ill 

Seek him yet. Search for him! 
You shall find him, spent and grim; 
In the prisons, where we pen 
These unsightly shards of men. 
Sheltered fast; 
Housed at length; 
Clothed and fed, no matter how! 
Where the householders, aghast, 



THE SINGING MAN 129 

Measure in his broken strength 
Nought but power for evil, now. 
Beast-of-burden drudgeries 
Could not earn him what was his: 
He who heard the world applaud 
Glories seized by force and fraud, 
He must break, — he must take! — 
Both for hate and hunger's sake. 
He must seize by fraud and force; 
He must strike, without remorse! 
Seize he might; but never keep. 
Strike, his once! — Behold him here. 
(Human life we buy so cheap, 
Who should know we held it dear?) 

No denial, — no defence 

From a brain bereft of sense, 

Any more than penitence. 

But the heart-beats now, that plod 

Goaded — goaded — dumb with wrong, 

Ask not even a ghost of God 

How long? 

When the Sea gives up its dead. 
Prison caverns, yield instead 
This J rejected and despised; 
This, the Soiled and Sacrificed! 
Without form or comeliness; 
Shamed for us that did transgress; 



130 AMERICAN POETRY 

Bruised J for our iniquities, 
With the stripes that are all his! 
Face that wreckage, you who can. 
It was once the Singing Man. 

IV 

Must it be? Must we then 
Render back to God again 
This His broken work, this thing, 
For His man that once did sing? 
Will not all our wonders do? 
Gifts we stored the ages through, 
(Trusting that He had forgot) — 
Gifts the Lord required not? 

Would the all-but-human serve! 
Monsters made of stone and nerve; 
Towers to threaten and defy 
Curse or blessing of the sky; 
Shafts that blot the stars with smoke; 
Lightnings harnessed under yoke; 
Sea-things, air-things, wrought with steel, 
That may smite, and fly, and feel! 
Oceans calling each to each; 
Hostile hearts, with kindred speech. 
Every work that Titans can; 
EvQry marvel : save a man, 
Who might rule without a 3Word. — 
Is a man more precious, Lord? 



THE SINGING MAN 131 

Can it be? — Must we then . 
Render back to Thee again 
Milhon, million wasted men? 
Men, of flickering human breath, 
Only made for life and death? 

Ah, but see the sovereign Few, 
Highly favored, that remain! 
These, the glorious residue. 
Of the cherished race of Cain. 
These, the magnates of the age. 
High above the human wage. 
Who have numbered and possesst 
All the portion of the rest! 

What are all despairs and shames. 
What the mean, forgotten names 
Of the thousand more or less, 
For one surfeit of success? 

For those dullest lives we spent. 
Take these Few magnificent ! 
For that host of blotted ones. 
Take these glittering central suns. 
Few; — but how their lustre thrives 
On the million broken lives ! 
Splendid, over dark and doubt, 
For a million souls gone out ! 
These, the holders of our hoard, — 

Wilt thou not accept them. Lord? 



132 AMERICAN POETRY 

V 

Oh, in the wakening thunders of the heart, 

— The small lost Eden, troubled through the night, 
Sounds there not now, — ^forboded and apai't. 

Some voice and sword of light? 
Some voice and portent of a dawn to break? — 
Searching like God, the ruinous human shard 
Of that lost Brother-man Himself did make, 
And Man himself hath marred? 

It sounds! — ^And may the anguish of that birth 
Seize on the world; and may all shelters fail, 
Till we behold new Heaven and new Earth 

Through the rent Temple-vail! 
When the high-tides that threaten near and far 

To sweep away our guilt before the sky, — 
Flooding the waste of this dishonored Star, 
Cleanse, and overwhelm, and cry! 

Cry, from the deep of world-accusing waves, 

With longing more than all since light began, 
Above the nations, — underneath the graves, — 
'Give back the Singing Man!' 



WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN 133 



WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN * 
Guy Wetmore Carryl 

This poem refers to the great fighting ships of the American 
Navy which, in their war-dress, were painted gray. The occasion 
of this poem was the Spanish War of 1898. 

To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o^er mapless 

miles of sea, 
On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost 

isles are free. 
And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor, and 

height, and hill. 
Breaker and beach cry each to each, ^^Tis the Mother 

who calls! Be still r' 
Mother! new-found, beloved, and strong to hold from 

harm. 
Stretching to these across the seas the shield of her 

sovereign arm. 
Who summoned the guns of her sailor sons, who bade 

her navies roam. 
Who calls again to the leagues of main, and who calls 

them this time home ! 

* Reprinted from The Garden of Years and Other Poems by 
Guy Carryl, through the courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



134 AMERICAN POETRY 

And the great gray ships are silent, and the weary 

Avatchcrs rest, 
The black cloud dies in the August skies, and deep in the 

golden west 
Invisible hands are limning a glory of crimson bars, 
And far above is the wonder of a myriad wakened stars I 

Peace! As the tidings silence the strenuous cannon- 
ade, 

Peace at last! is the bugle blast the length of the long 
blockade, 

And eyes of vigil weary are lit with the glad release, 

From ship to ship and from lip to lip it is '^ Peace I 
Thank God for peace. '^ 

Ah, in the sweet hereafter Columbia still shall show 

The sons of these who swept the seas how she bade them 
rise and go, — 

How, when the stirring summons smote on her chil- 
dren's ear, 

South and North at the call stood forth, and the whole 
land answered, "^ Here V^ 

For the soul of the soldier's story and the heart of the 
sailor's song 

Are all of those who meet their foes as right should meet 
with wrong, 

Who fight their guns till the foeman runs, and then, on 
the decks they trod. 



WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN 135 

Brave faces raise, and give the praise to the grace of 

their country^s God ! 
Yes, it is good to battle, and good to be strong and free, 
To carry the hearts of a people to the uttermost ends of 

sea. 
To see the day steal up the bay where the enemy lies in 

wait. 
To run your ship to the harbor's lip and sink her across 

the strait: — 
But better the golden evening when the ships round 

heads for home, 
And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in a swirl of 

seething foam. 
And the people wait at the haven's gate to greet the 

men who win ! 
Thank God for peace ! Thank God for peace, when the 

great gray ships come in ! 



136 AMERICAN POETRY 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 
In Springfield j Illinois 

Vachel Lindsay 

Abraham Lincoln was buried in Springfield, Illinois, May 4, 
1865. Later a monument was built in Oakwood Cemetery and 
dedicated October 15, 1874. It contains a life-size statue of the 
speaking Lincoln. Vachel Lindsay himself Hves in Springfield. 

It is portentous, and a thing of state 
That here at midnight, in our little town, 
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest. 
Near the old court-house pacing up and down. 

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards 
He lingers where his children used to play; 
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones 
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away. 

A bronzed, lank man ! His suit of ancient black, 
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl 
Make him the quaint great figure that men love, 
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. 

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. 

He is among us:— as in times before! 

And we who toss and lie awake for long 

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 137 

His head is bowed. He thinks onmeu and kings. 
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep? 
Too many peasants fight, they know not why, 
Too many homesteads in black terror weep. 

The sins of all the war lords burn his heart. 
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. 
He carries on his shawl- wrapped shoulders now 
The bitterness, the folly, and the pain. 

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn 
Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free: 
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth 
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp, and Sea. 

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, 
That all his hours of travail here for men 
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace 
That he may sleep upon his hill again? 



138 AMERICAN FOETEY 

THE TWELVE: FORTY-FIVE 
Joyce Kilmer 

Joyce Kilmer was destined to be one of our country's great 
poets. His was a true poet's soul which needed but to be struck 
in order to yield music. This little poem is eminently charac- 
teristic of the man and the type of work he did. 

Within the Jersey City shed 

The engine coughs and shakes its head. 

The smoke, a plume of red and white, 

Waves madly in the face of night. 

And now the grave, incurious stars 

Gleam on the groaning, hurrying cars. 

Against the kind and awful reign 

Of darkness, this our angry train, 

A noisy little rebel, pouts 

Its brief defiance, flames and shouts — 

And passes on, and leaves no trace. 

For darkness holds its ancient place, 

Serene and absolute, the king 

Unchanged, of every living thing. 

The houses lie obscure and still 

In Rutherford and Carlton Hill. 

Our lamps intensify the dark 

Of slumbering Passaic Park. 

And quiet holds the weary feet 

That daily tramp through Prospect Street. 



THE TWELVE: FORTY-FIVE 139 

What tho we clang and clank ajid roar 

Through all Passaic's streets? No door 

Will open, not an eye will see 

Who this loud vagabond may be. 

Upon my crimsoned-cushioned seat, 

In manufactured light and heat, 

I feel unnatural and mean. 

Outside the towns are cool and clean; 

Curtained awhile from sound and sight 

They take God^s gracious gift of night. 

The stars are watchful over them. 

On Clifton as on Bethlehem 

The angels, leaning dpwn the sky. 

Shed peace and gentle dreams. And I — 

I ride, I blasphemously ride 

Through all the silent countryside. 

The engine's shriek, the headlight's glare 

Pollute the still nocturnal air. 



In Ramsey, Mahwah, Suffern, stand 
Houses that wistfully demand 
A father — son — some human thing 
That this, the midnight train, may bring. 
The trains that travel in the day 
They hurry folks to work or play. 
The midnight train is slow and old, 
But of it let this thing be told, 



140 AMERICAN POETRY 

To its high honor be it said, 

It carries people Jhome to bed. 

My cottage lamp shines white and clear. 

God bless the train that brought me here! 

THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED 
Joyce Kilmer 

This is Sergeant Kilmer's best-known poem. The subject 
is the sinking of the Lusitania. 

With drooping sail and pennant 

That never a wind may reach, 
They float in sunless waters 

Beside a sunless beach. 
Their mighty masts and funnels 

Are white as driven snow, 
And with a pallid radiance 

Their ghostly bulwarks glow. 

Here is a Spanish galleon 

That once with gold was gay, 
Here is a Roman trireme 

Whose hues outshone the day. 
But Tyrian dyes have faded 

And prows that once were bright 
With rainbow stains wear only 

Death^s livid, dreadful white. 



THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED 141 

White as the ice that clove her 

That unforgotten day, 
Among her palHcl sisters 

The grim Titanic ^ lay. 
And through the leagues above her 

She looked, aghast, and said: 
^^What is this living ship that comes 

Where every ship is dead?^^ 

The ghostly vessels trembled 

From ruined stern to prow; 
What was this thing of terror 

That broke their vigil now? 
Down through the startled ocean 

A mighty vessel came, 
Not white, as all dead ships must be, 

But red,^ like living flame! 

The pale green waves about her 

Were swiftly, strangely dyed. 
By the scarlet stream that flowed 

From out her wounded side. 
And all her decks were scarlet 

And all her shattered crew. 
She sank among the white ghost ships 

And stained them through and through. 

The grim Titanic greeted her 
'^And who art thou?'^ she said; 



142 AMERICAN POETRY 

^^Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet 

Arrayed in Uving red? 
We are the ships of sorrow 

Who spend the weary night, 
Until the dawn of Judgment Day, 

Obscure and still and white/ ^ 

"Nay/^ said the scarlet visitor, 

'^Though I sink through the sea 
A ruined thing that was a ship; 

I sink not as did ye. 
For ye met with your destiny 

By storm or rock or fight, 
So through the lagging centuries 

Ye wear your robes of white. 

'^But never crashing iceberg 

Nor honest shot of foe. 
Nor hidden reef has sent me 

The way that I must go. 
My wound that stains the waters, 

My blood that is like flame, 
Bear witness to a loathly deed, 

A deed without a name. 

"I went not forth to battle, 

I carried friendly men, 
The children played about my decks, 

The women sang — and then — 



THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED 143 

And then — the sun blushed scarlet 

And Heaven hid its face, 
The world that God created 

Became a shameful place! 

^^My wrong cries out for vengeance, 

The blow that sent me here 
Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream 

Has reached Jehovah^s ear. 
Not all the seven oceans 

Shall wash away the stain; 
Upon a brow that wears a crown 

I am the brand of Cain.'' 

When God's great voice assembles 

The fleet on Judgment Day, 
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise 

In sea and strait and bay; 
Though they have lain for ages 

Beneath the changeless flood. 
They shall be white as silver. 

But one — shall be like blood. 

^ The Titanic was the largest ship, with one exception, ever 
built. She was making her maiden voyage with over 2000 people 
aboard when she colHded with an iceberg on April 15, 1912. She 
sank in four hours carrying nearly 1600 people to their deaths. 

2 The Red Ship is the Lusitania which was sunk by a German 
submarine, May 7, 1915. 



114 AMERICAN POETRY 

THE BATTLE OF LIEGE 
Dana Burnet 

The Battle of Liege was written in commemoration of the 
gallant stand made by the Belgians at Liege, a fortified city 
commanding the entrance into Belgium. For three weeks early 
in August, 1914, the Belgian Army withstood the German ad- 
vance, giving the Allies an opportunity to concentrate their 
forces. It is one of the stirring poems which have come out of 
The Great War. 

Now spake the Emperor to all his shining battle forces, 
To the Lancers, and the Rifles, to the Gunners, and the 

Horses; — 
And his pride surged up within him as he saw their 

banners stream! — 
^^Tis a twelve-day march to Paris, by the road our 

fathers travelled, 
And the prize is half an empire when the scarlet road's 

unravelled — 
Go you now across the border, 
God's decree and William's order — 
Climb the frowning ridges 
With your naked swords agleam! 
Seize the City of the Bridges — • 
Then get on, get on to Paris — 
To the jewelled streets of Paris — 
To the lovely woman, Paris, that has driven me to 

dream!'' 



THE BATTLE OF LIEGE. 145 

A hundred thousand fighting men 
They chmbed the frowning ridges, 
With their flaming swords drawn free 
And their pennants at their knee. 
They went up to their desire, 
To the City of the Bridges, 
With their naked brands outdrawn 
Like the lances of the dawn! 
In a swelhng surf of fire, 
Crawhng higher — higher — higher — 
Till they crumpled up and died 
Like a sudden wasted tide. 

And the thunder in their faces beat them down and 
flung them wide ! 

They had paid a thousand men, 

Yet they formed and c^^me again, 

For they heard the silver bugles sounding challenge 

to their pride, 
And they rode with sword agleam 
For the glory of a dream. 
And they stormed up to the cannon'^ mouth and 

withered there, and died. ... 
The daylight lay in ashes 
On the blackened western hill. 
And the dead were calm and still; 
But the Night was torn with gashes — 
Sudden ragged crimson gashes — 



146 AMERICAN POETRY 

And the siege-guns snarled and roared, 

And the tranquil moon came riding on the heaven's 

silver ford. 
What a fearful world was there, 
Tangled in the cold moon's hair! 
Man and beast lay hurt and screaming, 
(Men must die when Kings are dreaming!) 
While within the harried town 
Mothers dragged their children down 
As the awful rain came screaming, 
For the glory of a crown ! 

So the Morning flung her cloak 

Through the hanging pall of smoke — 

Trimmed with red, it was, and dripping with a deep 

and angry stain ! 
And the Day came walking then 
Through a lane of murdered men. 
And her light fell down before her like a Cross upon 

the plain! 
But the forts still crowned the height 
With a bitter iron crown! 
They had lived to flame and fight. 
They had lived to keep the Town! 
And they poured their havoc down 
All that day . . . and all that night . . . 
While four times their number came, 
Pawns that played a bloody game! — 



THE BATTLE OF LIEGE 147 

With a silver trumpeting, 
For the glory of the King, 

To the barriers of the thunder and the fury of the 
flame! 

So they stormed the Iron Hill, 

O'er the sleepers lying still. 

And their trumpets sang them forward through the 

dull' succeeding dawns. 
But the thunder flung them wide, 
And they crumpled up and died, — 
They had waged the war of monarchs — and they died 

the death of pawns. 

But the forts still stood. . . . Their breath 

Swept the foeman like a blade. 

Though ten thousand men were paid 

To the hungry purse of Death, 

Though the field was wet with blood, 

Still the bold defences stood, 

Stood! 

And the King came out with his bodyguard at the 

day's departing gleam — 
And the moon rode up behind the smoke and showed 

the King his dream. 



LIST OF AMERICAN POEMS FOR 
SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



Aldrich, Thomas Bailey 
Friar Jerome's Beautiful 
Book 

BuNNER, Henry C. 
The Chaperon 
The Way to Arcady 

Carey, Alice 
November 

Carey, Phoebe 
Suppose 
The Leak in the Dyke 

English, Thomas D. 

Ben Bolt 
Field, Eugene 

Apple Pie and Cheese 

De Amicitiis 

Goodby — God Bless You 

Little Boy Blue 

The Twenty-third Psalm 

Finch, Francis M. 

The Blue and the Gray 
Gilder, Joseph B. 

Parting of the Ways 



GuiNEY, Louise Imogen 
The Wild Ride 

Kauffman, Reginald W. 

The Wastrel 
Lanier, Sidney 

Song of the Chattahoochie 

The Revenge of Hamish 
Miller, Joaquin 

Columbus 

Westward Ho 

Moody, William Vaughn 

Gloucester Moors 

Road Hymn for the Start 

Robert Gould Shaw 

We Are Our Father's Sons 
Morris, George P. 

Woodman, Spare That Tree 
Payne, John H. 

Home, Sweet Home 

PoE, Edgar Allen 
Annabel Lee 
Israfel 
The Bells 



149 



150 POEMS FOE SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



The Raven 

Ulalume 
Riley, James Whitcomb 

Aramazindy 

A Life Lesson 

Ike Walton's Prayer 
Sill, Edward Rowland 

The FooFs Prayer 



Stoddard, Richard Henry 

Abraham Lincohi 
The Fhght of Youth 

Story, William W. 

lo Victis 
Wood worth, Sam 

The Old Oaken Bucket 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) is considered the 
Father of American Poets. While still a boy in his early home at 
Cummington, Massachusetts, he began to write verse and at the 
age of ten contributed his first poem to a country paper. When 
fourteen years old he wrote ^'The Embargo.'^ In 1821 he re- 
moved to New York to become the associate editor of The Evening 
Post and three years later assumed the responsibility of editor. 
Thus Bryant was both a poet and a journalist. His pre-eminence 
as a poet he held for sixty-four years; in fact, he was the model of 
American verse until Longfellow appeared. These poems of his 
are worth special mention: '^To the Fringed Gentian,'^ ^'The 
Death of the Flowers,'' ^^The Crowded Street," '^ My Country's 
Call," and ''The Battlefield." Further facts about his life may 
be found in Stedman's Poets of America, 

Dana Burnet (1888- ) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He 
was educated in Cornell and graduated from the College of Law 
in 1911. Since then he has held various positions on The Evening 
Sun, and is at the present time a special writer for that paper. 

Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873-1904) was born in New York 
City. He chose literature as his profession and finally became 
the Paris representative of Harper and Brothers. He has written 
many poems of value. 

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) spent his short life in his 
native city. New York. He is remembered for two fine poems, 
''The American Flag" and ''The Culprit Fay." In his writings 
he was associated with Fitz-Greene Halleck who wrote a eulogy 
on Drake that is worth reading. 

151 



152 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ranks as America's 
greatest essayist and from many viewpoints her foremost poet. 
He was for several years a Unitarian minister in Boston, the city 
of his birth, but retired to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1834. 
Here, amid ideal surroundings, he spent the remainder of his life, 
devoting most of his time to writing. As a popular and stimulat- 
ing lecturer, he made the lyceum stage of his day a leading means 
of reform. His doctrine was the gospel of the worth of the in- 
dividual. Among Emerson's writings should be mentioned his 
essays, especially the one entitled ''Manners;" other prose works, 
particularly his lectures entitled Representative Men; poems, of 
which should be emphasized "Threnody," "The Problem ". and 
"The Humblebee." A very readable account of his life is to 
be found in Sanborn's Emerson and his Friends at Concord. 

John Finley (1863- ) was born in Grand Ridge, Ilhnois. 
He attended Knox College from which he graduated in 1887. 
He returned to Knox College as its president in 1892, remaining 
there seven years. In 1900 Mr. Finley went to Princeton as a 
professor of politics and retained that position until 1903. In 
1913 he was made Commissioner of Education in New York 
State and President of the University of the State of New York. 
These positions Mr. Finley now holds. He has done considerable 
writing and lecturing. Among the best of his verse is the poem 
contained in this collection. 

Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) was mdely known as a 
writer of magazine verse. Born in Bordentown, New Jersey, he 
was educated privately and later studied law in Philadelphia. 
He was assistant editor of Scribnefs Monthly for some time; later 
he became editor-in-chief of The Century. Some of his collected 
poems have the following titles: Five Books of Songs, In Palestine^ 
Poems and Inscriptions. 

Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902), although most often asso- 
ciated with the West, was born in Albany, New York. He went 
to California in his childhood where he remained until 1871. In 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 153 

1878 he went; as consul to Germany and was later transferred 
to Scotland. He wrote thirty volumes of prose — mostly short 
stories — as well as one of poetry. It is by the former that he is 
best remembered. The setting of most of his writings is the 
West of the gold-discovery era. He is the interpreter of the 
miners of those pioneer days. Among his stories are to be noted 
'^The Luck of Roaring Camp," ''Tennessee's Partner," and ''The 
Outcasts of Poker Flat." 

John Hay (1838-1905) was an interesting product of the Mid- 
dle West. He became a lawyer in 1861 and later served as assist- 
ant private secretary to Abraham Lincoln. He saw service in 
the Civil War where he was finally bre vetted colonel. After a 
varied political career, he became Secretary of State under 
William McKinley. Notwithstanding all his official duties, he 
found time to do some writing, particularly poetry. The scenes 
of his Pike County Ballads, from which "Jim Bludso of the 
Prairie Belle" is taken, are laid in Arkansas when the Great West 
was in the maldng. The American Statesmen Series contains 
further facts about his life. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was a New Englander 
by birth, was educated as a physician, and served as professor of 
anatomy in Harvard University from 1847 to 1882. He became 
popular as a writer about the time The Atlantic Monthly was 
established in 1857. His fame rests on his poetry and his essays, 
among which may be mentioned The Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table, "Bill and Joe," "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," 
"The Deacon's Masterpiece," and "Union and Liberty." Sted- 
man has a good biographical sketch of the humorist in Poets of 
America. 

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was born in New York City 
the same year as Lowell and Whitman. She was ardent in her 
support of the anti-slavery movement and woman suffrage. 
Among her many poems must not be forgotten that familiar 
song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." 



154 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

John James Ingalls (1833-1900) was known as the States- 
man-Poet. A resident of Massachusetts in his early years, he 
moved to Atchison, Kansas, where he edited The Atchison 
Champion. He served his state as United States Senator at 
various times until 1885. 

Francis Scott Key (1780-1843) was a Maryland lawyer who 
practiced his profession in Washington, D. C, for several years. 
His only poem of note is ''The Star Spangled Banner.'^ Over his 
grave in the cemetery of Mt. Olivet, Maryland, the flag of our 
country constantly floats, a tribute to the man who wrote the 
words of what has since practically become our national 
anthem. 

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was a promising writer of New 
Jersey. He graduated from Columbia in 1908 and immediately 
turned to the teaching of Latin. In 1909 he became assistant 
editor of The Standard Dictionary j and after three years under- 
took the literary editorship of The Churchman. From 1913 until 
his enHstment in the A. E. F. he was connected with various 
publications in New York City, especially The New York Times 
and The Literary Digest. Kilmer enlisted as a private seventeen 
days after the United States declared war on Germany and went 
overseas with the Rainbow Division early in the struggle. He 
was a sergeant attached to the Intelligence Department of the 
First Battalion of the 69th Regiment, when killed in the great 
AlHed drive on July 30, 1918. He was buried where he fell, 
beside the river Ourcq in France. 

Vachel Lindsay (1879- ) is a resident of Springfield, 
Illinois, the place of his birth. He was a student at Hiram Col- 
lege, Ohio, from 1897 to 1900. During the summer of 1912, 
Lindsay walked from Illinois to New Mexico distributing rhymes 
and speaking in behalf of ''The Gospel of Beauty." Later he 
took other similar trips. He has also recited his poems before 
many colleges and schools. One of the best collections of his 
works is The Congo and Other Poems published in 1914. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 155 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) is the most 
widely read of American poets. Born the same year as Whittier, 
he spent his boyhood in Portland, Maine, and graduated from 
Bowdoin College in 1825. After three years in Europe, he was 
made professor of modern languages at Bowdoin and at Harvard. 
From 1854 until his death, he devoted his entire life to writing. 
The following poems of his are especially worth reading: ^^Excel- 
sior," ^'The Psalm of Life," ^'The Arrow and the Song," ^^The 
Building of the Ship," and '^The Wreck of the Hesperus." 
Among his prose works are Outre-Mer, Hyperion, and Kavanagh. 
For further facts concerning his writings, consult Stedman's 
Poets of America. 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was born in Elmwood on 
the outskirts of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the same year as 
Walt Whitman. He was trained among the influences which 
come from Nature and books, combined in ideal surroundings. 
He graduated from Harvard in 1838 after a hazardous career. 
He then became a lawyer in Boston, where he gradually found 
himself a poet almost before he was aware of it. Some of his best 
poems are: ^^The Biglow Papers," ^^The Shepherd of King 
Admetus," and ''The Vision of Sir Launfal." In 1854 he began 
to write some prose, chiefly essays. Lowell served his country 
several years as minister to Spain and later to England. He re- 
turned to his home in 1885 and died in Cambridge in 1891. The 
full measure of his greatness may be gained from reading Greens- 
let's Life of Lowell. 

Edwin Markham (1852- ) was born in Oregon, and hves 
at present near New York City. He graduated from Christian 
College, Santa Rosa, and became headmaster of Tompkins School 
at Oakland. He achieved prominence in 1899 when he pub- 
lished "The Man with the Hoe." Since then he has written 
many notable poems. 

Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867), a Kentuckian by birth, 
served in the Mexican War and on the Confederate side in the 



156 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

Civil War. He is remembered for the one poem included iu this 
volume. 

Josephine Preston Peabody, Mrs. S. L. Marks, (1872- ) 
has written several volumes of poetry and prose, among which 
may be mentioned The Wayfarers, Old Greek Folk Stories, and 
The Singing Leaves. Her home at present is in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. 

John Pierpont (1785-1866) was born in Litchfield, Con- 
necticut. He graduated from Yale in 1804 and then studied 
theology. After holding several pastorates, he became a United 
States chaplain in 1861. He was noted as an anti-slavery worker. 
Pierpont also wrote several poems, the most stirring of w^hich is 
the one contained in this volume. 

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) was a poet and essayist of 
Connecticut. He graduated from Yale at the age of twenty with 
the distinction of being selected class poet. That year he made a 
trip around Cape Horn to California where he stayed until 1866. 
On his return east, he entered the Harvard Divinity School. 
From 1874 until 1882, Sill was Professor of English in the Univer- 
sity of California. He then removed to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, 
and devoted the remainder of his life to literature. 

Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835- ) is best known as a 
writer of stories. She began her career when a girl in Calais, 
Maine, for the purpose of eking out the family expenses. Among 
her works may be mentioned Ballads about Authors, New England 
Legends, The Amber Gods and The Thief in the Night. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was both a poet and 
critic. Two books in particular, Poets of America and An Amer- 
ican Anthology give proof of his literary ability. Born in Hartford, 
Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, he was for two years con- 
nected with the New York Tribune and in 1861 became war 
correspondent of The World, another New York daily. After the 
Civil War, his time was almost wholly devoted to writing. 

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was a Pennsylvania Quaker. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 157 

He published a collection of poems in 1844, and in this year 
began to travel over Europe on foot. Later he wrote some 
interesting sketches of his wanderings. He died in Berlin while 
serving as minister to Germany. The American Men of Letters 
Series contains an interesting biography of Taylor. 

John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916), although born in 
New York State, is closely associated with Boston where he went 
to live in 1848. He wrote much fiction, including many juvenile 
stories, once very popular. Several collections of his poems have 
been published. They include The Vagabonds, The Emigrant's 
Story, At Sea, and Midsummer. Reference may be made to The 
International Encyclopoedia for additional facts concerning his life. 

Henry Van Dyke (1852- ) is a versatile and appreciated 
author of both prose and poetrj^, and has, moreover, served with 
honor in various capacities — as pastor for many years of the 
Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, as professor of 
English Literature in his Alma Mater, Princeton, and as minister 
to the Netherlands under Wilson's administration. His home as a 
boy was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and is now in New Jersey. 
Some of his writings are the following : The Blue Flower, and The 
Ruling Passion — works of fiction; Fisherman's Luck, and Little 
Rivers — essays; The Builders and Other Poems and The Red 
Flower — collections of poetry. 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was of humble birth, the son of a 
carpenter who lived on the outskirts of Brooklyn. His early life 
was spent in rambling about, acquiring experience. Whitman 
desired to free himself from all poetic restrictions and in so doing, 
his poetry lacks both meter and rhyme. Thus he is not popular, 
although he is coming to be recognized as one of our greatest 
poets by reason of his democratic spirit of independence. His 
ideal hero was Abraham Lincoln of whose death he wrote the 
inimitable '^O Captain! My Captain!" For an interpretation of 
his unique personality, read Whitman: A Study by John Bur- 
roughs. 



158 • BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) seems to have had a 
lonely childhood on his father's farm at Haverhill, Massachusetts, 
and to have been awakened to his ability through reading the 
poems of the Scotchman, Robert Burns. Throughout the period 
preceding the Civil War, Whittier was constantly alert to the 
evils of slavery and sacrificed himself almost daily upon the altar 
of the Abolitionists. Much of his verse is the result of this great 
period of trial and temptation. Some of Whittier's most notable 
poems are : * ' Barbara Frietchie, " * ' Centennial Hymn, " * ' Maude 
Muller'' ''Skipper Ireson's Ride," ''Snow Bound," and '^ The 
Piper of Lucknow. " He was, like his first exemplar, the poet of 
the common people. Pickard's Life of Whittier is well worth 
reading. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper | 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Ox 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnoli 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESI 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Townsliip, PA 160 
(724)779-2111 



